
Class. 
Book 



1j i i I 



COPYBiGHT DEPOSIT. 



CHILD TRAINING 

AS AN 

EXACT SCIENCE 

A Treatise Based upon the Principles of 
Modern Psychology y Normal and Abnormal 



BY 
GEORGE W. JACOBY, M.D. 

FELLOW OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE, MEMBER OF THE 
AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, AMERICAN NEUROLOGICAL ASSO- 
CIATION, AND NEW YORK NEUROLOGICAL SOCIETY, CONSULTING 
NEUROLOGIST TO THE HOSPITAL FOR NERVOUS DISEASES, THE 
GERMAN HOSPITAL, THE BETH ISRAEL HOSPITAL, THE 
RED CROSS HOSPITAL. AND THE INFIRMARY FOR 
WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN THE CITY OF 
NEW YORK, ETC. 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 




FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 

New York and London 

1914 



LBn 



\ \ \5 



J? 



Copyright, 1914, by 

FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 

IPrinted in the United States of America] 

Published, November, 1914 



/€3 



5-0 

NOV 23 1914 



'CI,A388559 



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PREFACE 

A TREATISE on child training as an exact science, 
based upon the principles of modem psychology, 
medicine and hygiene, has seemed to me to be an 
urgent necessity. Pedagogy and medicine in them- 
selves are distinctly separate fields of science. The 
former is concerned only with the mental and moral 
development, the latter only with the physical 
development of the child. The points of contact 
between the two become apparent only when it is 
realized that children with bodily abnormalities 
of development as a rule also show disorder in 
their mental development, and vice versa. If the 
intellectual weakness caused by goiter and adenoid 
vegetations is an evidence of the close connection 
existing between bodily conformation and mental 
activity, then it should not be difficult to under- 
stand how similar indications could lead to still 
other deductions. Without exaggeration it might 
be claimed, likewise, that every organ of the body 
may have a relation to mental functions. In order 
to obtain a clear conception of the dependence of 



iv PREFACE 

psychic vital manifestations upon physical pro- 
cesses, we need but thiak of that steadily augment- 
ing nervousness in children which seems to be in- 
separably associated with increasing culture. 

Without doubt there are children who, notwith- 
standing physical infirmities, develop mentally in 
a normal manner, just as there are children in 
whom, notwithstanding normal bodily development, 
mental defects may be recognized. These, how- 
ever, are exceptional manifestations which can not 
serve as a guide for an educational treatise. The 
basis of all pedagogic training must be the general 
assumption that only in a healthy body can there 
exist a healthy mind, one capable of harmonious 
development. Protection of the body against 
disease-bearing influences which react upon the 
psychic functions, or the removal of an existing 
disorder, does not belong to the domain of peda- 
gogic science, but is part of medicine and hygiene. 
For this reason the teacher and educator can not 
repel the cooperation of the physician. We may 
go still further and maintain that in the case of 
healthy children as well the science of medicine is 
a necessary adjunct to pedagogy. There can be 
no doubt that many teachers and educators, 



PREFACE V 

through an inadequate understanding or knowledge 
of the psychology of childhood, commit grave errors 
which manifest themselves iu overtaxation, exces- 
sive severity and a disregard of the requirements 
of school hygiene and which, sooner or later, result 
in disordered development of the child. Then, too, 
there are children who, occupying a border line 
between health and disease, for the time being do 
not manifest any decided deficiency and, therefore, 
give the impression that they are normally de- 
veloped, but who, because of their slight neuro- 
pathic heritage, easily break down as a result of 
increased pedagogic treatment. In such cases the 
pedagogic task of medicine is a prophylactic one, 
while wherever the psychopathic inferiority is 
marked, it must be a question of remedial influence. 
In any circumstances, however, prevention is better 
than cure, and the prophylactic side of medical 
pedagogy should have at least the same considera- 
tion that is given to the therapeutic side. 

It is not just to expect the pedagog to possess 
sufficient knowledge of physiology, pathology, 
therapeutics and hygiene to be able, in each indi- 
vidual case, to determine unaided whether pro- 
phylactic or therapeutic care is requisite. Still 



vi PREFACE 

less can it be expected that teacher and educator 
should be capable of conducting such treatment 
independently. Consider the immense complexity 
of the human organism ; consider the daily expand- 
ing volume of the scientific armamentarium which 
the physician requires in the exercise of his mani- 
fold duties; and, finally, consider that even the 
physician, trained as a specialist, is not immune 
from serious error. If we take all these facts into 
account, we can not hope for one moment that the 
pedagog shall successfully solve even those medical 
problems which must, necessarily, confront him in 
his own sphere of activity. 

On the other hand, it would seem that teacher 
and educator should at least possess sufficient 
understanding of medico-pedagogic problems to 
enable them to do effective cooperative work with 
the physicians. It is an incontrovertible and fre- 
quently deplored fact that, through imperfect 
understanding of the psychic and physical pro- 
cesses which take place during the growth and 
development of the child, practical training, both 
in the home and in the school, often is responsible 
for most serious mistakes. Many times the fact is 
overlooked that all impairment of physical develop- 



PREFACE vii 

ment, all inadequate nourishment, all deficiencies 
of sensory perceptions, etc, constitute obstacles to 
mental development, and that often it is merely 
their early recognition and effacement that is re- 
quired to bring the child back to a normal state. 
Systematic cultural direction of the child's mental 
life necessarily calls for a certain knowledge of 
the nervous system and its functions. The peda- 
gog must understand the art of observing, and 
must be sufficiently versed in physiological psy- 
chology to differentiate the normal and the 
"atypical" and to distinguish between fault and 
disease. Only in this way will the art of education 
attain that rational character which is based upon 
reason and scientific experience, and without which 
it can be no more than a groping in the dark, a 
planless experimentation. It is true that pedagogy 
to-day possesses a valuable aid in the corps of 
school physicians who at regular intervals subject 
the children to a careful examination, the result of 
which is made the basis for further medico-peda- 
gogic procedures. But, aside from the fact that 
school physicians have been appointed only in the 
larger cities, and the outlook for their general 
employment is not good, the school physician sees 



viii PREFACE 

the children only from time to time and can, there- 
fore, not have that intimate knowledge which the 
teacher, who has the children about him daily, 
should possess. 

For the teacher and educator, therefore, the 
necessity of obtaining knowledge about questions 
bordering upon medicine and pedagogy will con- 
tinue to exist. This knowledge the present book 
strives to impart. Just as impracticable as would 
be an attempt to cover the entire field of law in 
a work on forensic medicine or of religion in a 
book on pastoral medicine — it being necessary only 
to present so much of the subject as is required for 
the special purposes of comparison involved — 
would be an effort, in a work on education based 
on medicine and hygiene, to give the reader an 
exhaustive treatise on pedagogy. Such an under- 
taking, indeed, would be a mistake, as it would 
carry the physician into fields foreign to him and 
he could, of course, tell the trained teacher and 
educator nothing new concerning purely pedagogic 
questions. I have, therefore, limited myself to a 
presentation of that medico-hygienic scientific 
material which the pedagog can not forego using 
in the rational exercise of his profession. 



PREFACE ix 

I hope the reader may gain from a study of this 
book the conviction that — as Krafft-Ebing has said 
— many of the errors and severities of education 
will fade away, many an improper choice of a life 
occupation will be avoided, and, consequently, many 
a psychic existence will be saved when pedagogy 
makes a more profound study of the pathological 
conditions that influence the human body. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction 3 

Ideas compared to seeds — Appreciation of the 
individuality of the child — A * ' normal ' ' standard 
— Atypical children — Value of physiologic psy- 
chology. 

Part First: Historical Survey .... 15 

Helplessness of the older pedagogy — Ancient 
superstitions — Goggenmos' training school for 
cretins — Guggenbiihl 's institution on the Abend- 
berg — The *' savage of the Aveyron" — Itard, 
Voisin and Seguin — Eeil's "Ehapsodies" — De- 
velopment of experimental psychology — Close 
connection betv?een medicine and pedagogy. 

Part Second: The Psychology of Child- 
hood 33 

I. A General Consideration of the Ner- 
vous System and Its Functions . 33 

A. Organs of Mental Activity . . 33 

A. Brain and Spinal Cord .... 33 
Voluntary and involuntary muscular actions — 
Structure of the nervous system — White and gray 
substance — The cerebrum — Cortical centers — The 
cerebellum — Pons and oblongata — Eeflex move- 
ments — Ganglion cells and psychic activity — 
Eelationship of mind and body. 

B. The Peripheral Nerves .... 41 
Sensory nerves — Motor nerves — Specific proper- 
ties — Sympathetic nervous system. 

C. Psychic Functions 49 

Eeciprocal action in the central organs — Differen- 
tiation of the objects in the surrounding world — ■ 
Memory — Sense deceptions — Correction of physio- 
logical sense deceptions — ' ' Attention ' ' or thought 



xii CONTENTS 

PAGE 

concentration — Automatic activity of the brain — • 
Pathological sense deceptions — Lack of critical 
power — Gaps in sensory impressions — Helen 
Keller — Keaction-time and its measurement — 
Development of the brain cortex — Senile changes 
— Sleep — Differences between sleep and uncon- 
sciousness — Dreams — Sensory impressions in sleep. 

B. Development of the Child's 

Mental Activity 74 

Eeflex movements in fetal life — Memory pictures 
in early childhood — Apperceptions of sensory im- 
pressions — How nerve tracts become ' ' passable ' ' 
— Learning to read — Learning to speak — Motor 
aphasia — Sensory aphasia — Amnesic aphasia — • 
Fundamental law of biogenesis — The struggle for 
existence — Laws of heredity — Johann Gregor 
Mendel — Heredity in plants and animals — Appli- 
cation of the Mendelian law to man — The organs 
of speech. 

II. The Intellectual Development of 

THE Child 95 

The principle of progression — The principle of 
evolution — Expansion of sensory perceptions — 
The imagination — Social feelings — Influence of 
literature — Isolated perceptions — Wundt 's law — 
Perimetry — Speech development — Physiological 
stammering — Agrammatism — The Binet-Sinion 
test — The esthesiometer test — Overburdening — 
Sexual dissipation — Sexual hygiene — ' ' Nature 
knows only individuals" — Classification of Chil- 
dren — Prevention of psychic ' ' infection. ' ' 

Pakt Third: The Psychic Abnormalities 

of Childhood 152 

A. Organic Defects 152 

Adenoid vegetations — Aprosexia — Cretinism — 
The goiter regions — Cretinism and the thyroid 
gland — Causation of goiter — Kocher's experi- 
ments — Myxedema following thyroid operations 
— Mongolism — Congenital absence of sensory 
functions — Idiocy — Soul blindness — Soul deaf- 
ness — Principles of classification — The fixation 
test — Active and passive attention — The Moron 
group — The imbeciles — The idiots — The question 



CONTENTS xiii 

PAGE 
of artificial sterilization — Causation of idiocy — 
Alcoholism — Syphilis — Head injuries — Brain 
changes — Hydrocephalus — Microcephalus — 
Secondary feeble-mindedness — Influence of pubes- 
cence — Premature dementia — Apathetic and ex- 
cited imbeciles — Stuttering — Moral insanity — 
Predominance of egotistic impulses. 

B, Functional Disorders .... 210 

Neurasthenia — Phobias — Hysteria — Disorders of 
the intellect — Diseases of the will. 

Part Fourth: Prophylactic Training . . 221 

A. The Parents 221 

Insufficiency of legal enactments — Cure of con- 
stitutional anomalies — Surveillance of pregnancy 
— The cure of the new-born. 

B. The Children 228 

A. Development of Sensory Activity . 229 

The Montessori Method — Self -development of the 
child — The adaptation of pedagogic methods to 
the individuality — Development of sensory activ- 
ity — Practical results. 

B. Bodily Development .... 243 

Avoidance of stimulants — Food and dietetics — 
Malnutrition — Open air life — Hardening pro- 
cedures — Gymnastics — Athletics — Eurythmic 
movements — Physiology of coordination — De- 
velopment of the musical sense. 

C. Intellectual Development . . . 275 

Manual instruction — Kindergarten occupations — 
Drawing — Writing — Singing — Correct speaking — 
Atypical children — Overburdening — Supplemen- 
tary schools for deficient children — The only child 
— True significance of individualization. 

D. Formation of the Character and 

the Will 303 

Natural egotism — Education's aim — The free 
choice of a life pursuit. 

Part Fifth: Therapeutic Training . . . 319 
I. The Educable 319 



xiv CONTENTS 

PAGE 

A. Causal Treatment 319 

Surgical treatment of aprosexia — Microcephalic 
children — Hydrocephalus — Organotherapy in cre- 
tinism — Hyperthyroidism. 

B, Symptomatic Treatment . . . 331 

Bad habits — facial contortions — Bedwetting — 
Corporal punishment not an educational measure 
— Psychotherapy — Exercise and repose — Manual 
training. 

II. The Uneducable 363 

Institutional treatment for low-grade idiots — 
Care for their bodily comfort — Habituation to 
cleanliness — Simple occupations — Family care. 

Part Sixth: Conclusion 369 

Literature 373 

Index 379 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING PAGE 

1. Edouard Seguin 20 

2. Maria Montessori 28 

3. Adenoid Vegetations 156 

4. Sporadic Cretinism 160 

5. Group op Mongolian Idiots . . . 172 

6. High Moron 180 

7. Low Moron 192 

8. High Imbecile 194 

9. Low Imbecile 200 

10. Idiot 204 

11. Microcephalic Idiot 210 

12. Montessori Children at Work . . 240 

13. EuRYTHMY; Correlation op 

Movements 272 

(Plate A.) 

14. EuRYTHMY; Correlation of 

Movements 274 

(Plate B.) 

15. Sporadic Cretinism 328 

(A) Child 4 years of age. 

(B) Same child after 5 weeks' treatment by 

thyroid extract. 

(C) Same child after 14 months' treatment by 

thyroid extract. 



INTRODUCTION 

Ideas may be compared to seeds — the viable 
ones mature while the others perish. Certain 
seeds develop slowly, then take root more deeply in 
order the longer to withstand injurious influences. 
It is the same in the domain of thought. Neither 
the dazzling phrases of unqualified reformers nor 
the untenable deductions of passionate fantasts are 
able to exert any decisive influence upon the 
currents of the times. It is true such men may 
sway the unthinking masses and attain momentary 
success by substituting the products of their fertile 
imaginations for actual facts. But enduring 
success, a decisive influence upon our conditions of 
life, is gained only by those ideas which, being the 
products of necessity, mature and take on a more 
and more definite shape through slow development, 
thus giving to the investigating intellect proof of 
their viability. 

Appreciation of the individuality of the child 
is an idea of this kind. The insufficiencies of the 
method of instruction and education which had 
in view only the "average child" having been dis- 

3 



4 INTRODUCTION 

regarded for many years, it remains for modern 
research to call attention to them. 

After Guggenbiihl and Seguin, of both of whom 
we will speak again, had shown that the principle 
of individualization could be the means of causing 
material improvement in certain forms of psycho- 
pathic inferiority, the Copenhagen physician, Wil- 
liam Meyer, came forward with a series of obser- 
vations which showed that obstructed nose-breath- 
ing, caused by adenoid vegetation, not only hin- 
dered the bodily development of the child, but also 
hampered its intellectual efficiency. These dis- 
coveries gave impetus to further investigations as 
to the influence of bodily abnormalities upon the 
development of mental imperfections. Not only 
were these studies the means of materially in- 
creasing the prevailing knowledge of the muta- 
tional relationships between brain and intellect, 
the faculty of thought and its correlative physical 
organ, but, to the astonishment of all, it was also 
shown that the ideas then current concerning the 
human organism still in a state of development 
were entirely erroneous. 

Children were supposed to adapt themselves to 
the pattern constructed by means of a "normal" 



INTRODUCTION 5 

standard. Those who were backward in the 
accomplishment of the allotted task were con- 
sidered inadequately endowed, or, what perhaps 
was worse, were looked upon as indolent, because 
no one thought of attributing insufficiencies of 
intellect and character formation to bodily defects. 
Deprecable severity was employed in order to 
accomplish what, in fact, could only be achieved 
by an adaptation of the method of instruction and 
education to the individual nature of the child. 
On the other hand, the conception of the true 
nature of the productive ability and the rapidity 
of thought association shown by highly talented or 
"wonder" children, was often erroneous, for fre- 
quently these qualities were nothing more than a 
manifestation of abnormally excited nerve ac- 
tivity.* Our increasing insight into the depend- 
ence of mental functions upon the composition of 
the nervous system made such erroneous views 
untenable, and forced a consideration of the child's 
individuality from a psychic point of view as well 

* In connection with this we may well call to mind such geniuses 
as Lenau the poet, and Nietzsche the philosopher, both of whose 
days were prematurely shortened through insanity, and compare 
them with other renowned men like Newton, Froebel, and Liebig, 
who as children were considered indolent and incapable, and 
developed slowly, but who retained their mental vigor into old age. 



6 INTRODUCTION 

as from a physical one. Not for a moment would 
we deny the existence of intellectual and moral 
defects which can not be influenced by any amount 
of individualization, which, in other words, are 
incorrigible: nor would we maintain that all ab- 
normalities of mental life, whether indicated by an 
augmented or by a diminished activity of thought, 
emotion and will, are inevitably founded upon 
corresponding bodily states, and thereby explained 
or excused. Such assertions would far overstep 
the line of actual fact, and could not be supported. 
But it can be proved by convincing evidence that 
many of the failures of pedagogy could be avoided, 
many a child considered uneducable could be 
trained to become a useful member of society, if 
those who have control of its education and train- 
ing, at home and in school, the parents and teachers, 
would earnestly endeavor to find the key to the 
individuality of their ward. Not an imitation of 
a pattern but an individualization, not forced 
adaptation of children to a plan of instruction and 
education constructed for entirely different con- 
ditions, but, on the contrary, accommodation of 
the plan to the actual existing needs of the pupils — 
this must be the aim of all rational pedagogy. 



INTRODUCTION 7 

Following a long-recognized truth, pedagogy has 
given up that unpromising and, in the interest of 
general culture, undesirable effort which seeks 
through an obstinate adherence to ancient trans- 
mitted dogmas and methods to produce a race of 
beings all alike in mind and character. Pedagogy 
no longer desires to achieve only similar results 
with uniform methods, but to-day recognizes its 
task to be the attainment of the greatest possible 
harmony of development of each single being in 
accordance with his qualifications. But what has 
not received the attention which its importance 
merits, neither from the professional pedagog, nor, 
of course, from the general public, is the fact which 
we have already often exprest, and which will wend 
its way uninterruptedly through the entire subject 
matter of this treatise, that mental qualifications 
are bound up with the organs and conditions of 
the body, change with them, and consequently may 
increase or diminish, and that, therefore, indi- 
vidualization can be carried out effectively only 
when the physical make-up of the child is con- 
sidered in all its aspects. But if slowness of 
growth is regarded as a favorable augury for 
stability of development, then, undoubtedly, the 



8 INTRODUCTION 

principle of individualization will, just as it has 
done in medicine and jurisprudence, act transform- 
atively in pedagogy and bring about that reform 
which long has been recognized as necessary. 

We must at least hope that more just consider- 
ation will be given to children whose individuality 
makes them refractory to medico-pedagogic treat- 
ment, and that they will be accorded the sympathy 
so freely given to all other unfortunates. 

Recent medico-pedagogic experiences have taught 
us to be conservative in our judgment of mentally 
backward, psychopathically inferior, children. 
How often do we learn, after the key to the indi- 
viduality of mentally backward children has been 
found, that what was supposed to be feeble- 
mindedness or indolence was the consequence, 
solely, of bodily defects, obstructed nose-breathing, 
faulty hearing, etc. At any rate, before arriving 
at a final decision regarding incorrigibility of 
mind or character, and discontinuing further at- 
tempts at education and training as fruitless, 
nothing should be left undone to bring to light 
bodily abnormalities and functional disturbances 
which might stimulate an apparent, yet non-exist- 
ing mental weakness. If the removal of a simple 



INTRODUCTION 9 

nasal obstruction or the administration of prepara- 
tions of thyroid gland can bring about a recru- 
descence of mental alertness, why should not the 
earnest cooperation of medicine and pedagogy dis- 
close manifold other possibilities of protecting 
healthy children against injurious influences, and 
of raising psychopathic inferiors to a higher plane 
of potential activity. 

In the course of our treatise we will become 
acquainted, among those atypical children who do 
not fit into the normal mold and who require 
especial training and care, with a number of 
gradations varying from the "nervous" child, the 
child disordered in its development through 
erroneous training, the child only apparently lack- 
ing in mental endowment — all of which are per- 
fectly educable by means of proper treatment and 
pedagogic training — to the animal-like idiot with 
whom nothing can be done. 

It would be expecting too much to ask an im- 
mediate realization of our hopes. In the field of 
medical pedagogy, as in everything else, human 
power has its limitations, which, as our methods 
of examination and treatment become more and 
more perfected, may be partly overcome but can 



10 INTRODUCTION 

never be effaced. While there are children whose 
mental weakness is only apparent and who are 
awakened as from a sleep by proper treatment, 
there are others for whom conditions are entirely 
different — for instance, the actually feeble-minded 
and the idiots. These are what they are in conse- 
quence of irreparable defects in the brain ; certain 
parts of the brain are not present or have been 
destroyed, and can, therefore, not be developed. 
The defects of mind and character of true idiots 
correspond to defects in brain structure, and these 
are as little amenable to medical as to pedagogic 
treatment. Hence we must recognize the impossi- 
bility of converting imbeciles or idiots into persons 
of normal mental power. 

Nevertheless, we shall see later how, in such 
cases, through strictly classifying the plan of 
instruction and education and adapting it to the 
special requirements of the children, much may 
still be accomplished, and how whatever lies in 
them that is still capable of development may be 
brought out. The Montessori method especially, 
which will demand our consideration in many 
ways in the course of our further disquisition, has 
contributed much toward developing curable, or 



INTRODUCTION 11 

at least improvable, children up to the boundary 
line of their cultural capabilities, and has, by 
means of strict individualization, tended to prevent 
a complete deterioration of the sparse remnants 
of mental power which they may still possess. 

The medico-hygienic material which the pedagog 
can not forego in the rational exercise of his pro- 
fession is by no means, as might be assumed, solely 
pedagogic in nature. It is quite true it deals 
chiefly with pathological conditions and their 
therapeutic management; but, as we have already 
stated, medical pedagogy must not fail to consider 
measures of prevention. In fact, when the spirit 
underlying it is properly grasped, it should deal 
not only with the prophylaxis which concerns the 
children confided to its care and training, but also 
with that which will directly influence the adult. 

Because the physiological psychology of child- 
hood constitutes the basis for rational pedagogy, I 
have deemed it essential to devote a special chapter 
to this subject. In this field the science of medicine 
may also fittingly pass critical judgment upon 
pedagogy ; for it is precisely the lack of knowledge 
of physiologic-psychologic laws and the peculiari- 
ties of the human organism which manifest them- 



12 INTRODUCTION 

selves during its developmental period that are 
responsible for the faults and errors so frequently 
encountered in the history of pedagogic practise. 

Deductions made from false premises necessarily 
will be incorrect. If the mind of the child is not 
correctly understood, practical education and in- 
struction, being built upon a false basis, in the 
particular case, can not be correct. That is quite 
evident. What is to be said of the physical treat- 
ment of the child, of the proper diet, the training 
of sensory activity, the coordination of muscular 
movements, the development of the attention and 
the pov/ers of speech, the combating of bad habits, 
the instruction in all manner of attainments and 
dexterity, the development of emotional life and 
of the activity of the will, or whatever else is yet 
to be said about the very difficult process of edu- 
cating the mind and forming the character, I 
have endeavored to present in accordance with the 
most modern views of science. Finally, I must 
remark that I have considered it necessary to pre- 
lude the actual subject matter of my book by a 
historical survey. An insight into the formative 
period of a science, the presentation of the labor 
which has been required for its development and 



INTRODUCTION 13 

methodical construction, is, in my opinion, of in- 
estimable value, because it teaches better than a 
mere knowledge of scientific results how to dis- 
criminate between error and truth. 

No science enters the horizon as a ready-made 
entity. Only after it has overcome innumerable 
obstacles can it force recognition. Hence we can 
understand why it is that only by means of numer- 
ous errors and false steps could pedagogy arrive 
at a just appreciation of the value of physiologic 
psychology or experimental psychology, supported 
by pathology, therapy and hygiene. At the same 
time I have confined myself in the historical survey 
to a consideration of the significance of those 
factors which have been important in the develop- 
ment of medical pedagogy. The purely pedagogic 
viewpoints, in so far as they contain historical in- 
terest, require special consideration of a kind be- 
yond the scope of this work. As already stated, 
it was not my purpose to write a book on the 
general doctrine of education, but one dealing only 
with those pedagogic reforms which appear to 
be necessary from the viewpoint of medicine and 
hygiene. 

From the foregoing the reason for dividing the 



14 INTRODUCTION 

material at my disposal into the following four 
parts becomes obvious: 

First — Historical Survey. 

Second — Psychology of Childhood. 

Third — Prophylactic Training. 

Fourth — Therapeutic Training. 



PART FIRST 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 

In no instance did the older pedagogy show its 
helplessness more than when confronted by chil- 
dren who, in the expression of their psychic pro- 
cesses, deviated in any way from the accepted 
pattern. This was so because pedagogy was at the 
time the outgrowth of a psychology which had 
arbitrarily set up for itself a "normal type," in 
disregard of all experience and exact observation, 
and had made the development of the intellectual 
faculties, as well as of the emotions and will, adapt 
themselves to this type. In so doing, the fact was 
overlooked that deviations from the theoretical 
type, whether toward a higher plane or a lower, 
were not exceptional but constituted the rule. It 
is self-evident that so long as pedagogy remained 
under the spell of this speculative doctrine, it could 
make no decided step in advance and could not 
but be hampered by error upon error. 

Thus, for example, the causes which produced 
15 



16 CHILD TRAINING 

feeble-mindedness in children were entirely mis- 
understood. The ancient superstition that idiotic 
children, as well as the adult insane, were possest 
by evil spirits, endured into the eighteenth century, 
and exorcism — the conjuration and the supposed 
expulsion of the evil spirit by means of religious 
ceremonies — was again and again resorted to as 
the only efficacious remedy. Under these con- 
ditions it is not astonishing that in former times 
no one seriously thought of advancing weak-minded 
children through training and instruction; in fact, 
the belief in their cultural disqualification was so 
firm that nowhere can we find any record of an 
attempt at their training having been made. The 
simpletons and the half-witted ran freely about in 
the streets and public places, and often were tar- 
gets for the grossest sport. The feeble-minded 
were placed in asylums, not in order to protect 
them against harm, but exclusively in the interest 
of public safety. Not infrequently mentally ab- 
normal children were confined by their relatives 
simply because they did not know what else to do 
with them; and when, as was often the case, no 
special provision for the care of such children 
existed, they were placed in prison cells, where 



HISTORICAL SURVEY 17 

they were treated like the convicts with whom 
they were mingled. 

Weygandt reports a case of an idiotic child 
which is of interest because it enables us to gain an 
insight into the views current at the time of the 
Keformation. When Luther was in Dessau, he was 
shown a child that had its sight and all of its 
senses unimpaired. It ate as much as four 
peasants, passed its excrements under itself, and 
screamed when taken hold of. It laughed about 
occurrences in the house which were disagreeable, 
and when everything was peaceful it cried. 
Luther, firmly convinced that so much evil could 
be caused only by demoniac possession, said to the 
Ruler of Anhalt: *'If I were prince or master 
here, I would go with this child into the water" 
(meaning into the Mulde, which flows by Dessau), 
"and would risk committing homicide." 

These apparently merciless words of Luther are 
easily understood when we consider the opinion of 
the times in which he lived. Any one who does 
not know that psychic disorders are dependent 
upon physical abnormalities, and must, therefore, 
be looked upon as actual disease, may easily attri- 
bute them to demoniac influences. So it was 



]8 CHILD TRAINING 

that manifestly idiotic children were denied 
every right of existence, and neglected in every 
possible manner. This deplorable state of affairs 
continued almost without change until about the 
commencement of the nineteenth century, when 
reports came, at first from Salzburg, then from 
Switzerland and France, that it was possible to 
cure weak-minded children and transform them 
into useful beings, no longer a burden to society. 

In 1828, Goggenmos, a teacher in Salzburg, 
founded an institution or training-school for 
cretins, which, notwithstanding many successes, 
failed seven years afterward for lack of municipal 
support. Following this failure, Guggenbiihl, a 
physician, busied himself with the redemption of 
the cretins of Switzerland, and , for this purpose 
erected an institution upon the Abendberg near 
Interlaken, that soon became celebrated through- 
out the civilized world. Visitors streamed in from 
all sides; as a result of what was shown there, 
they became convinced of the possibility of edu- 
cating the feeble-minded, and they departed full 
of enthusiasm for the establishment of similar 
institutions in their own communities. 

Guggenbiihl expected, through colonization of 



HISTORICAL SURVEY 19 

the cretins in the higher Alpine regions, to achieve 
positive cures. This hope was based on experi- 
ences which he himself described in the following 
words: "Since time immemorial the intelligent 
people of the Canton "Wallis have brought their 
children, if born with signs of cretinism (which 
usually were at once recognized by the midwives), 
up to the sunny heights of their Alps, where man 
develops so gloriously, bodily and mentally, with 
the constant result that this pure atmosphere, 
aided by proper diet and training, has brought 
about a complete disappearance of the affliction 
in a few years, while the unfortunates whom fate 
has decreed to remain below sink into a state com- 
pared with which that of the Hottentots, Bushmen, 
Fuegians, etc., is an enviable one." 

Enthusiasm for Guggenbiihl and his enterprise 
was not of long duration. He was soon reproached 
for having promised more than he could achieve, 
and the number of his friends and adherents 
dwindled. In the year 1858 Gordon, the English 
Ambassador in Bern, prompted an investigation 
by the Swiss Government which resulted in a 
report unfavorable to Guggenbiihl, characterizing 
him as a charlatan. Later he tried to justify him- 



20 CHILD TRAINING 

self in the Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft Wiener 
Aerzte, but without success. His institution was 
closed, and a few years afterward he died forsaken 
and forgotten. 

The disappointment which befell the supporters 
of Guggenbiihl can be appreciated when we con- 
sider that he declared feeble-mindedness in chil- 
dren to be a curable disorder, but did n9t differen- 
tiate the various degrees of educational qualifica- 
tion which existed in the individual cases according 
to the gravity of the mental affliction. Just as 
strongly as the belief in the cultural disqualification 
of idiotic children prevailed prior to the first 
pedagogic attempts at training, so firmly did the 
belief in the educational qualification of all of 
them take root afterward. One extreme was re- 
placed by another. "Whether Guggenbiihl was 
always wilfully deceptive, when he declared that 
the successful therapeutic results which he obtained 
in the milder cases could be obtained in the severe 
ones by means of the same methods, can not be 
determined to-day. It is certain, however, as 
Heller maintains, that at present we no longer 
look upon Guggenbiihl 's early activities so opti- 
mistically, nor upon his later failures so depre- 




Edouard Seguin. 



HISTORICAL SURVEY 21 

catingly as was formerly the ease. In the begin- 
ning, at any rate, he was governed by the best 
intentions and believed thoroughly in the success 
of his method, and even at present the principles 
of his early pedagogic attempts are acknowledged 
to be correct. 

I am in accord with Griesinger when he says 
in this connection : * ' The matter was then thought 
to be very much less difficult than it really was, 
and no enduring advantage was derived from the 
arousal of exaggerated hopes and expectations and 
from the announcement as accomplished facts of 
cures which, in reality, were very doubtful." 
What Griesinger has said regarding Guggenbiihl 
deserves attention and, as is shown by so many 
disappointing experiences in medicine and other 
fields of science, may well be applied to other 
reforms and reformers. 

In France, too, the first remedial pedagogic at- 
tempts bore the marks of sensationalism. 

In the year 1801, there was found in the woods 
of the Aveyron, an extraordinary being, who in 
appearance resembled a man run wild, and in 
habits and mode of life differed but little from an 
animal. This "savage of the Aveyron" was simply 



Y 



22 CHILD TRAINING 

an idiot who had strayed from home or had been 
purposely abandoned by his family. Such beings 
have been found at different times in the forests, 
and have, as Kraepelin reports, been described as 
an unusual species of the human race {Homo 
sapiens ferns). This particular unfortunate 
aroused the compassion of the physician Itard, who 
took him in charge, and for six years occupied him- 
self in the endeavor to train him. The success he 
obtained, while only a partial one, aroused in- 
describable public enthusiasm. 

Encouraged by Itard 's success, Ferrus organized 
a special school for cretins at Bicetre near Paris, 
which in 1839 was followed by a second one under 
Voisin's direction. The work of Seguin, Voisin's 
successor, was of special moment in connection with 
the development of remedial pedagogy. He was 
the first to systematize this branch of therapeutics 
and his views were published in his book, "Traite- 
ment Moral Hygiene et Education des Idiots et 
des Autres Enfants Arrieres." In 1848 Seguin 
emigrated to the United States, where for a time 
he was at the head of the Pennsylvania Training- 
"\ School and afterward of the Massachusetts Insti- 
tution for the Feeble-minded, at Waverley. Then 



HISTORICAL SURVEY 23 

he settled in New York, where he died in 1880, in 
the midst of preliminary work for the foundation 
of a "physiological school for weak-minded and 
weak-bodied children. ' ' 

Seguin's life history in some way resembles that 
of his contemporary Guggenbiihl. Both, notwith- 
standing their unusual capabilities, were wanting 
in the perseverance and self-abnegation required 
to hold them to their aim in life, purely for its 
own sake and without ambition for any wide recog- 
nition. Both represented the dawn of an epoch 
in the methods of educating the feeble-minded, in- 
asmuch as they gave the impetus for the foundation 
of remedial pedagogic institutions in all civilized 
countries. Common to both, however, was the 
inability to obtain more than passing success, be- 
cause the systems of therapeutic pedagogy which 
they evolved were made up of an admixture of 
truth and error, of exact observation and specula- 
tive deductions. The truth which their systems 
contained may be summed up in one word ''in- 
dividualization," representing the principle that 
the feeble-minded needed methods of training and 
instruction and bodily treatment entirely different 
from those of healthy children. They erred in 



24 CHILD TRAINING 

not relying sufficiently upon the facts derived 
from experience and in not repressing an exag- 
gerated enthusiasm which led to premature general- 
ization. 

Both Guggenbiihl and Seguin allowed them- 
selves to be misled, through single successful cures, 
into expecting all remaining cases of feeble- 
mindedness necessarily to yield to the same methods 
of treatment. 

The confusion of ideas which existed at that 
time regarding the significance of feeble-minded- 
ness must, however, be noted in extenuation of 
these mistakes. Feeble-mindedness was looked 
upon as a failing always dependent upon the same 
cause, and one which in different cases, with differ- 
ent symptoms, might vary in degree but never in 
nature. Hence, it was supposed, the treatment 
of the different cases could vary only in measure 
or extent, but not in kind. Guggenbiihl and 
Seguin, however,, should not have allowed them- 
selves to be dominated by such views, for their 
extensive experience in therapeutic pedagogy must 
have furnished them with ample opportunity to 
observe the very different manifestations of idiocy 
in its various forms. It was this omission of 



HISTORICAL SURVEY 25 

proper observation that was responsible for their 
subsequent ill-success, and to this must be attrib- 
uted the reaction which occurred in remedial 
pedagogy, even during the life of both of these 
men, and which in some countries ended all 
endeavor to improve the condition of the feeble- 
minded. In this connection, however, it should 
not be forgotten that the fundamental ideas of these 
two reformers, based as they were upon a con- 
sideration of the individual characteristics of 
idiocy, even to-day maintain their sway, tho modi- 
fied, indeed, by exact clinical observation and the 
more perfected knowledge derived from differen- 
tial diagnosis, pathological anatomy, and experi- 
mental work. Of Seguin's ideas we may further- 
more state that particularly the methods devised 
by him for the development of sensory activity 
have recently been adopted, elaborated, and suc- 
cessfully employed for the education and training 
of normal children by Dr. Maria Montessori. 

It is in the remedial pedagogic endeavors of 
Guggenbiihl and Seguin that there becomes mani- 
fest the close relationship between medical and 
pedagogic views which the older pedagogy failed 
to recognize. This pedagogy dealt, as we know, 



26 CHILD TRAINING 

exclusively with a fictitious normal type, with 
children whose mental development was based upon 
normal understanding and upon normal manifesta- 
tions of the emotions and will. 

Guggenbiihl and Seguin clearly saw that all 
pedagogic activity must depend upon the develop- 
mental capability of the child mind, and that the 
greater or smaller remnant of educable capability 
existing in many idiots was not accessible to pure 
pedagogic methods, but required for its develop- 
ment the orderly influence of medical and peda- 
gogic factors combined. It was also clear to them 
that the psychiatric points of view which were 
applicable to the treatment of the adult insane 
could not be applied as such to the training of the 
juvenile feeble-minded or idiotic, and for this 
reason the proper place for the care of mentally 
abnormal children was not an asylum for the in- 
sane but an institution organized for the purpose. 
Had Guggenbiihl and Seguin not bound them- 
selves down to their artificial system, without 
doubt they would have recognized that the en- 
deavors of remedial pedagogy could by no means 
end with an improvement or cure of idiocy alone, 
but must aim to attain the same results in those 



HISTORICAL SURVEY 27 

nervous states of childhood which are characterized 
as neurasthenic and hysterical. 

How little was known a century ago of the 
different kinds of abnormalities of childhood be- 
comes manifest by reading Reil's " Ehapsodies, " 
published in 1803. Reil does not differentiate be- 
tween congenital and acquired idiocy, but parallels 
cases of congenital or acquired feeble-mindedness 
and cases of dementia produced in later life by 
injuries to the skull. For purposes of treatment 
he distinguishes purely dynamic idiocy in which, 
he says, "the constitution of the organ of thought 
is not noticeably injured but is deprived of its 
excitability," and which seems to him to be cur- 
able, from incurable idiocy in which "the organ 
of the mind has been destroyed or transformed 
into foreign matter." The different grades of 
idiocy, he says, are of importance in deciding the 
manner of treatment. For the treatment of 
cretins, whom he classes as idiots, he unfolds a 
very intelligible, hygienic therapeutic plan ; for the 
others he recommends a large number of drugs, as 
well as mustard, horseradish, pepper, vanilla, the 
inhalation of oxygen, warm applications to the 
head, friction of the scalp, all kinds of baths and 



28 CHILD TRAINING 

vesicant plasters. More effective, however, he says, 
are psychic methods — above all, he urges the 
arousal of thoughtfulness and a feeling of altruism 
by means of rubbing, tickling and douching and 
even by the implantation of scabies; furthermore, 
he advocates alarming the children by means of 
loud noises, vivid colors, lightning, or other natural 
forces. Finally, also, pedagogic remedies, to- 
gether with gymnastic exercises and mathematics, 
are proposed for the "culture of the attention." 

Reil asserts in addition that the majority of the 
higher-grade idiots may be trained to work in the 
home and in the field — most of them, it is true, 
only as beasts of burden for harrowing and 
plowing. Fittingly he warns against brutal 
treatment of refractory idiots. It hardly seems 
necessary to emphasize the fact that Reil's views 
were not derived from exact individual observation 
but essentially from preconceived theories. 

Once it had been realized that neither Guggen- 
biihl nor Seguin had constructed a universal 
system for the cure of the feeble-minded, remedial 
pedagogy entered upon an epoch of quiet, steady 
development. Henceforth no personality occupied 
the foreground. Eesults which were not able to 



HISTORICAL SURVEY 29 

withstand the wear of time were not made public. 
Physicians and pedagogs interested in improving 
the condition of the feeble-minded and of idiots 
endeavored by means of constant observation and 
physiologic and psychologic experiments, to gain 
an insight into the criteria which might serve to 
differentiate the manifold abnormalities of the 
child's mental life and to construct therefrom 
pedagogic therapy adapted to the individuality of 
each single case. More and more, consequently, it 
became clear that practise should not be derived 
from theory, but that theory must be the outcome 
of practical experience. 

Remedial pedagogy made a decided step forward 
when Wilhelm Wundt, through his experimental 
psychological investigations, cast new light upon 
the development of the child's mind under normal 
and pathological conditions, and when it became 
known, for reasons which will demand our atten- 
tion later on, that the condition of cretins might 
be remarkably improved by means of the regular 
administration of preparations of the thyroid 
gland. 

While these and similar observations demon- 
strated with constantly increasing clearness the 



30 CHILD TRAINING 

close connection between medicine and pedagogy, 
a search for the explanation of the moral deterior- 
ation of young people that manifested itself in 
the increase of crimes committed by children, dis- 
closed the fact that many of these delinquencies 
must be regarded as the expression of abnormalities 
that caused partial or entire irresponsibility. If 
such abnormalities could pass unrecognized by the 
skilled eye of the teacher and educator, if careful 
psychiatric observation alone could disclose them, 
then it should have been quite clear that pedagogy 
of itself could not in all cases determine what was 
normal and what was diseased, and that there 
existed a large field in which pedagogic methods 
alone could not lead to the desired end. 

From the time when pedagogy and medicine 
were as strangers to each other, to that of the 
introduction of school physicians, many forensic 
battles were necessary in order to demonstrate that 
the teacher and educator could not officiate as 
physician any more than the latter could intervene 
in purely pedagogic questions. Then it also be- 
came manifest that the two sciences must cooperate 
in the common task of furthering the bodily and 
mental health of young people, or removing, so far 



HISTORICAL SURVEY 31 

as was possible, the disorders which already existed 
and of training the children to become useful 
members of human society. Only from the mutual 
correlation of medicine and pedagogy can that 
correct understanding of pedagogic-psychology, 
prophylaxis and therapy ensue which will be the 
topic of the following chapters. 



PART SECOND 

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 
CHILDHOOD 

I. A GENERAL CONSIDERATION OF THE 
NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS 

A. Organs of Mental Activity 

A. BRAIN AND SPINAL CORD 

Normal vital activity proceeds in such a manner 
that the various functions of the human body 
cooperate and act harmoniously, as, for instance, 
do the gears in a complicated machine. This is 
brought about by means of the nervous system, 
p^l All voluntary and involuntary muscular actions, 
the processes of metabolism and digestion, the 
secretion of glandular products, the absorption of 
fluids from the stomach and intestines, the activity 
of the heart, respiration, heat formation, and the 
excretion of the products of catabolism, are all 
regulated by means of the nervous system. 

Through the nervous system all organs and 
physical activities are combined into one harmoni- 

33 



34 CHILD TRAINING 

ous whole. Through the nerves and their special 
development into sensory organs, we receive the 
impressions of the outer world as well as those im- 
pressions that originate within our own bodies. 
Finally, also, by means of the nerves, all mental 
activities, which essentially are really nothing but 
activities of the body in another form, are trans- 
mitted. An understanding of the nervous system 
— ^what it consists of, and how it influences our 
daily life — is, undoubtedly, necessary to all who 
hope to comprehend the psychology of childhood, 
and in this work it has an especial value of em- 
phasizing to the educator the reason for many 
deviations of the normal type. In the nervous sys- 
tem we must differentiate a central and a periph- 
eral position. The former is made up of the 
brain and the spinal cord, the latter of the nerves 
through which the central organs are connected 
with all other organs and parts of the body. 

The structure of the nervous system is so com- 
plicated that an understanding of it is obtainable 
only with difficulty unless we are aided by the 
use of models and anatomical specimens. The brain 
lies within the cavity of the skull, the spinal cord 
within the spinal column. In both organs we may 



ORGANS OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 35 

distinguish, upon transverse section, a white and 
a gray substance. In the gray substance are found 
the nerve cells which transmit the psychic processes. 
The white substance, on the other hand, contains 
the conducting tracts by means of which the nerve- 
cells are placed in communication with the organs 
of the body and the outer world. In the brain the 
gray substance, consisting of a comparatively 
narrow layer, occupies the entire cortex, while the 
white substance is found in the interior. In the 
spinal cord the placement of gray and white sub- 
stance is just the reverse. Brain and spinal cord 
are surrounded by a number of membranes. 

The human brain may be divided into three 
parts : 

1. The great brain or cerebrum, 

2. The little brain or cerebellum, 

3. The brain stem, made up of the pons and 
oblongata. 

The cerebrum forms the main mass of the brain. 
The gray cortex is the seat of the intellect and of 
consciousness, as well as the place where sensory 
impressions and impulses of the will originate. In 
more recent times it has even been possible to 
determine certain circumscribed territories of the 



36 CHILD TRAINING 

brain cortex as the respective centers for different 
psychic processes. For instance, certain localities 
of the brain are designated as the speech center, 
others as the visual center, and others as the motor 
centers. Destruction of the apposite central locali- 
ties produces at once either loss of the power of 
speech, or of sight, or of motion in the extremity 
corresponding to the part destroyed. The fissure 
passing longitudinally from the front toward the 
back of the head divides the cerebum into a left 
and a right half. This division, however, is not a 
complete one, the halves being connected by a 
transverse bridge, the corpus callosum. The exist- 
ence of this transverse bridge makes it possible 
for the two halves of the brain to be in action 
simultaneously, as well as for one half to substitute 
for the other in case of disease or partial destruc- 
tion. The surface of the brain is characterized by 
numerous fissures among which longitudinal ridges 
the brain convolutions take their course. 

The cerebellum also consists of the two parts 
which, however, are not so distinctly divided. The 
fissures and convolutions upon the surface of the 
cerebellum have a more horizontal appearance. 
The cerebellum is the seat of those nerve cells 



ORGANS OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 37 

which exert an influence upon the execution of 
complicated movements. 

The brain stem forms, so to speak, a transition 
between the cerebrum and cerebellum jointly, and 
the spinal cord. The upper division of the spinal 
cord (which is, in fact, the lowest division of the 
brain stem and lies within the skull) is called the 
medulla oblongata. This part contains the center 
for all respiratory movements. 

The spinal cord is a cylindrical formation extend- 
ing downward from the brain until, in the lumbar 
region, it branches into a number of nerve strands. 
The white substance on the outer surface of the 
cord contains those nerve fibers which start in the 
cerebrum and cerebellum and pass through the 
brain stem downward through the spinal cord. 
The gray substance in the interior of the cord 
contains the nerve cells for the so-called reflex 
movements, i.e., those movements which are brought 
about without the influence of the will when any 
stimulus acts upon a part of the body. Thus, for 
instance, when light strikes the open eye the iris 
contracts, so that the pupil becomes smaller with- 
out the person being able to prevent it. If the 
arm of a sleeping person is pinched, there occurs 



38 CHILD TRAINING 

unconsciously and involuntarily, a jerk through 
which the sleeper endeavors to withdraw his arm 
or to ward off the annoyance. When the cornea 
is touched the eye closes ; when the patellar tendon 
is struck, the leg jerks up. All these and other 
reflex movements differ from automatic movements 
in that they are produced only by certain stimuli. 
The cardiac function, respiratory function, diges- 
tive function, etc., also take their courses without 
the influence of the will or consciousness. In such 
purely automatic movements as those just men- 
tioned no special stimulus, however, need be 
present, as is the case in the production of reflex 
movements. 

I have spoken of nerve cells and nerve fibers, 
and must describe these somewhat more explicitly. 
The ganglion cells must be looked upon as the chief 
constituents of nerve tissue. These are inter- 
connected with each other, as well as with the 
organs of the body, by means of delicate fibers 
which serve for conduction, and are designated 
"nerve fibers." The nerve or ganglion cells exist 
in large numbers, chiefly in the brain and the 
spinal cord. They form comparatively large cells 
with a noticeable bubble-like nucleus. In form the 



ORGANS OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 39 

cells vary, but they usually show a stellate appear- 
ance, having a larger or smaller number of pro- 
jections. Each projection passes into a delicate 
fiber-like process, which either serves to place the 
individual nerve cells in communication with 
others, or traverses the body, finally to end in a 
specific organ. The extensions or processes of the 
ganglion cells, which connect the cells with one 
another, branch tree-like and for this reason are 
called dendrites, while the other nerve fibers are 
designated neurites. But, in turn, the neurites, or 
longer strands of fibers which take their course 
without lateral branching, divide up at their ends 
into many smaller fibers which enter into relation 
with those of the dendrites. Each nerve or gang- 
lion cell, together with its dendrites and neurites, 
forms a complete, independent nerve unit which 
is called a neuron. 

The gray substance of the brain and spinal cord 
consists, in the main, of ganglion cells and the 
thick network produced by the branching of their 
dendrites. On the other hand, the white substance 
is formed chiefly by the neurites. It is assumed 
that the dendrites conduct stimuli from outward 
to the nerve cells, while the neurites, on the other 



40 CHILD TRAINING 

hand, conduct stimuli which have arisen within the 
ganglion cells toward the periphery, transmitting 
them to other neurons which, in turn, stimulate 
the muscles or glands to action. At any rate, the 
nerve cells are elements in which all those manifold 
processes that are designated as mental activity 
take their course. Conception and thought asso- 
ciation, perception and will, take their origin in 
these cells alone, and are dependent upon their 
existence. Without ganglion cells there can be no 
mental activity. "When a part of these cells be- 
comes diseased or destroyed, those psychic func- 
tions which have been bound up with these cells 
cease. If, then, we seek the source of mental 
activities, we must look to the same organs to 
regulate the activities of the body. Special laws 
governing the mind and differing from those which 
govern the body do not exist. The relationship of 
human functions is so intimate that an apparently 
distant bodily disorder — for instance, disease of the 
thyroid gland — may carry a psychic disorder in 
its train. 

The orderly course of mental life is dependent 
upon the brain and the nervous system. These, 
however, can functionate in an orderly way only 



ORGAITS OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 41 

if the organs of circulation, of respiration, of 
digestion, of excretion, etc., are normally active. 
This, in turn, is also possible only if the regulating 
nerves functionate properly. Hence it becomes 
clear that the bodily and mental activities supple- 
ment one another, and neither can exist inde- 
pendently. 

B. THE PERIPHERAL NERVES 

Ganglion cells are found not only in the central 
organs, where they are interconnected by means 
of the dendrites, but also in the sensory organs. 
"When the skin is touched, the eye reached by a 
wave of light, or the ear by a tone wave, the 
mucous membrane of the tongue excited by a cer- 
tain taste, or that of the nose by a certain odor, the 
dendrites receive these various stimuli coming from 
the outside and conduct them to the nerve cells of 
the sensory organs, whence, by means of the con- 
necting fibers, they are then conducted to the 
ganglion cells of the brain. There, through the 
association fibers, which connect the nerve fibers of 
the brain and the spinal cord, impulses of the will 
arise, and these are transmitted by means of the 
nerve fibers to the muscles and glands, and trans- 
formed into action. 



42 CHILD TRAINING 

Consequently we must distinguish two sets of 
nerve fibers, one which conducts external stimuli or 
sensory excitations to the brain, where they become 
conscious sensory perceptions or ideas, and another 
which conducts impulses of the will through the 
brain to the muscles and glands. Those nerve 
fibers that lead from the periphery of the body to 
the center — that is, the brain and spinal cord — 
are called sensory nerves, while those which con- 
duct from the center to the periphery are known 
as motor nerves. The sensory nerves are unable 
to transmit motion, the special fibers of the visual 
organ can not transmit auditory impressions, those 
of the organ of hearing can transmit no impressions 
of light, etc. On the other hand, the motor nerves 
can not transmit sensory impressions. The nerve 
fibers and the nerve cells that belong to them 
react only in their proper specific manner. Psychic 
processes, therefore, consist, in the main, in the 
transmission to the brain through the sensory 
nerve fibers and nerve cells of sensory impressions 
which combine with previously existing ones. 
Through comparison of their similarities and diver- 
sities there are formed, little by little, distinct 
concepts which are transmitted through association 



ORGANS OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 43 

fibers to the motor ganglion cells and nerve fibers, 
eliciting such movements as may be a necessary 
and appropriate response to the stimuli coming 
from the outer world. In other cases, however, the 
sensory impressions are directly transferred to the 
motor nerve, eliciting corresponding movements 
without any special stimulus of the will, as, for in- 
stance, when an odor of a palatable dish produces 
a flow of saliva. The concept of the palatable dish 
acts upon the brain as a stimulus, which, notwith- 
standing any influence of the association fibers, is 
transmitted through certain nerve fibers to the 
salivary glands and incites their cells to an in- 
creased secretion. Again, in the case of an injury, 
the sensation of pain does not arise at the seat of 
the injury but in the brain, just as sensations of 
sound do not arise in the ear or sensations of light 
and color in the eye, but in the corresponding brain 
centers. The sensory nerves transmit the stimulus 
accompanying the injury to the brain, where not 
only the sensation of pain but also the concept of 
the seat of injury is aroused. The concept, un- 
influenced by the association fibers, immediately 
produces the proper protective movement. An- 
other case to be considered in the same connection 



44 CHILD TRAINING- 

is that of a person who becomes markedly excited; 
indirectly by way of the brain the excitement sets 
the motor nerves of the blood-vessels into action, 
causing them to contract, and produce a pallor of 
the skin. 

The nerve fibers are of cylindrical form. They 
originate, as already stated, from the extensions 
or processes of the ganglion cells, then take their 
course through the brain and spinal cord, and, 
passing out of these central organs, combine with 
other fibers of the same kind into thicker or 
thinner strands, which traverse the body and finally 
terminate in the organ to which they are destined. 
They therefore constitute an uninterrupted means 
of communication between their seat of origin and 
these organs. A trite but applicable comparison is 
that between nerve fibers and the wires of a tele- 
graph system, the brain and spinal cord being 
likened to the central station and the nerve fibers 
to the conducting wires which transmit messages 
to the main station, and thence transmit orders to 
other subsidiary stations. 

At the point of their exit from the brain or 
spinal cord, the nerve fibers are combined into fine 
or coarse strands which pass out through the fora- 



ORGANS OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 45 

mina at the base of the skull and in the spinal 
column and then, distributing themselves in all 
directions, become more and more attenuated until 
finally they are no longer visible to the naked eye. 
The nerve fibers which serve as conductors for 
sensory impressions have their terminal apparatus 
respectively in the tactile bodies of the skin, in 
the retina of the eye, in the labyrinth of the ear, 
in the gustatory papillae of the tongue, and in the 
olfactory cells of the upper nasal passages. The 
nerve fibers which conduct the motor impulses end 
in the muscles, glands and blood-vessels — and here 
by the term muscles must be understood not only 
those fleshy organs whose contraction causes move- 
ments of the extremities, but also those that bring 
about the movement of the heart, the stomach, the 
intestines, etc. 

The nerves are called peripheral only in so far 
as they lie outside of the central organs. As we 
have already stated, a large number of ganglion 
cells within the brain and the spinal cord are 
connected with one another by means of nerve 
fibers. These nerve fibers are counted among the 
central nerves. All nerve fibers which take their 
course outside of the brain and spinal cord, to- 



46 CHILD TRAINING 

gether with their nerve cells, are called peripheral 
nerves, irrespective of whether they are sensory 
or motor — that is, whether they convey sensory 
impressions to the brain, or whether, on the 
contrary, they convey motor impulses from the 
brain to the muscles and glands. It will not be 
superfluous to mention here that the sensory nerve 
tracts are far more complicated than the motor 
ones. The latter have no intermediary stations; 
on the other hand, various neurons are always 
interposed between the neurite which originates 
from a peripheral ganglion cell and the central 
neuron belonging to it in the brain cortex. 

Let us recall at this point that the motor nerves 
can conduct motion alone but no sensations, the 
sensory nerves only sensation but no motion. 
Similarly the individual organs of special sense 
can conduct only their corresponding sensory 
impressions and nothing else. This specific prop- 
erty of the peripheral nerves goes so far that 
motor nerves may be comprest, bruised or burned 
without producing the slightest sensation of pain, 
unless by chance some contiguous sensory nerve 
be injured at the same time. Likewise, for 
example, the optic nerve may be cut and ehemi- 



ORGANS OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 47 

cally or electrically irritated, without producing 
any effect other than a perception of light. Every 
nerve fiber, in fact, is capable of conducting only 
that stimulus which corresponds to its special 
function. The "sympathetic" nervous system, 
long looked upon as a special or third nervous 
system, really is a part of the rest of the nervous 
system, and not in any way an independent 
mechanism. It is made up very largely of nerves 
originating in the cerebro-spinal centers and con- 
stitutes an arrangement of true spinal nerves, 
connected with a series of ganglia through which 
they sometimes pass. On each side of the ventral 
surface of the spinal column passing from the 
skull to the sacrum is a chain of such ganglia 
united by a longitudinal cord. This strand is 
connected, by means of its nerve fibers, not only 
with the brain and spinal cord, but with the 
neighboring arteries, and, together with the 
branches of these arteries, reaches practically all 
organs of the body. 

The province of the sympathetic nerve is to 
supply with its branches the so-called smooth 
musculature, which brings about the involuntary 
(automatic) movements. As I have already in- 



48 CHILD TRAINING 

dicated, muscular movements are in part subject 
to the will, but in part, also, they take effect 
independently of the consciousness or will. We 
can voluntarily move only those organs and parts 
of the body which possess striated muscles, as, for 
instance, the arms, the legs, the tongue, etc. On 
the other hand, such movements as that of the 
heart, of the thorax, of the digestive organs, etc., 
all of which are effected by means of the smooth 
musculature, are for the most part removed from 
the influence of the will. "We are able to in- 
fluence them only in a limited degree. A person, 
for instance, can hold his breath for a short time 
but can not suppress it long. We are unable to 
prevent the undulatory movements of the stomach 
and intestines by means of which our food is 
drawn downward. It is as a result of contraction 
of the smooth muscles fibers of the blood-vessels 
that, under marked emotional excitement, we grow 
pale against our will. All this and much more 
that is dependent upon contraction of the smooth 
musculature is effected by the sympathetic nerve 
without any active cooperation on our part. 



ORGANS OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 49 

C. PSYCHIC FUNCTIONS 

Mental activity is made up in the main of 
sensory impressions and the responses which 
follow them. The brain responds by forming 
concepts from the sensory impressions and in- 
citing corresponding functions. For instance, the 
brain, perceiving that an object has fallen to 
the ground or that a musical instrument is out 
of tune, will set into action those activities which 
will restore the object to its place or will attune 
the musical instrument. In order, however, that 
the proper functions be brought into play 
through the sensory perceptions, it is necessary 
above all that the impressions of the outer world 
which are transmitted to the brain be correct. 
Perception and the response which follows, 
whether correct or false, are always the result of 
reciprocal action in the central organs. The 
more numerous and the more varied the impres- 
sions received, the more will the judgment based 
thereon be likely to represent a correct compre- 
hension of what actually has taken place. 
Through the fulness of such judgment, based 
upon sensory impressions, the individual becomes 
more and more capable of differentiating the 



50 CHILD TRAINING 

objects of the outer world and of recog'uizing 
himself as a special being, separate from its 
surroundings. All this is only possible, however, 
if the sensory impressions remain fixt in the 
brain cells so they may at any time be reproduced. 
This faculty we call memory or the power of 
recollection. Where memory is not present or 
is inadequate, where the brain cells do not retain 
the sensory impression after the stimulus which 
has produced it has passed away, there the neces- 
sary basis for the formation of judgment, for the 
comparison of sensory impressions, both as to 
their similarities and their differences, is wanting. 
This formation of judgment is possible only upon 
a basis of numerous and distinct ideas. The more 
the sensory impressions correspond to actuality, 
the more numerous, the more varied, and the 
more distinct will be the concepts of the outer 
world obtained through them, and the greater the 
contrast between one's self and the things of one's 
surroundings, the more will the individual be placed 
in a position to form a correct judgment. 

As we have learned, each of the nerves reacts 
only in its own particular manner. The same 
stimulus — a strong pressure, let us say — produces 



ORGANS OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 51 

in the optic nerve only a sensation of light or 
color, in the auditory nerve only a sensation of 
sound, in the tactile nerves only a sensation of 
pain, in the motor nerves only a contraction of 
the muscles. We can crush the optic nerve, burn 
it, stimulate it electrically or in any other 
manner, and yet the result will always be a per- 
ception of light; or if the same experiment be 
made upon the olfactory nerve, the result will 
always be a sensation of smell; if upon the tactile 
nerves, always a sensation of pain, etc. There- 
fore, since a stimulus in the course of the con- 
ducting nerves can not pass over from one tract 
to another, it must be clear that this provision 
exists so that the br«,in will always receive correct 
sensory impressions. In order to investigate the 
specific properties of nerves, it has been proposed 
to sever the optic and the auditory nerves and to 
connect the central end of the one with the peri- 
pheral end of the other. After the union of the 
two one might see whether stimulation of such a 
sensory conducting path, composed of nerves of 
two different specific properties, would produce a 
perception of light or a perception of sound, or 
both, in the brain. In view of the impracticability 



52 CHILD TRAINIXa 

of the experiment, this question can not be an- 
swered. There can be no question, however, that 
normal sensory organs always conduct normal 
impressions to the brain. 

Affections of the peripheral nerves and of the 
central organs, as a rule, are associated with more 
or less marked sense deceptions. That the con- 
cepts and judgment built upon such a basis must 
be false is a matter of course. Frequently such 
sense deceptions give rise to most calamitous 
actions, murders, suicides, etc. Of this we shall 
hear more later. At this place I would merely 
have it understood that sense deceptions do occur 
even under normal conditions. Thus, for instance, 
a black square placed upon a white background 
will appear smaller than a white square of equal 
size upon a black background. A rod partly 
immersed in water will appear broken. Parallel 
lines crossed by diagonal ones appear to diverge 
or to converge. If we cross the middle and index 
fingers of one hand and roll a pea or any other 
small globular object between their tips, the im- 
pression produced is that two such objects are 
held between the fingers. Many other examples 
of sense deceptions could be adduced. 



ORGANS OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 53 

It will be easy for any one to satisfy himself 
from his own experience that the majority of 
people may be subject to sense deceptions, that 
they see things differently from what they actually 
are, interpret noises incorrectly, allow themselves 
to be misled through the feeling of an object 
which they are unable to see, etc. These sense 
deceptions are so frequent that they may be 
designated as physiological. They occur particu- 
larly when, in consequence of excitement, fear, 
etc., calm observation is prevented, or when a 
certain sense impression can not be supplemented 
and controlled by other impressions, as, for in- 
stance, in the experiment with the pea, if the 
eyes are covered, so that vision be excluded. 

Between the normal (physiological) and the 
pathological sense perceptions there exists a 
material difference, in that the latter are not 
susceptible of correction. It is easy to show a 
normal person that he has been in error but 
not so a person who is mentally disordered. For 
this reason the sense deceptions of healthy per- 
sons, particularly if soon corrected, as a rule 
entail no evil results. Nevertheless, it is not un- 
usual to confound one person with another in the 



54 CHILD TRAINING 

dark. We have heard of persons returning home 
late and being attacked as unknown intruders by 
their relatives. This is exactly what should have 
happened had the premises been correct. In such 
cases, when the brain unleashes the appropriate 
protective movements and actions, it functionates 
properly. But in the example given, the prem- 
ises were false and the resulting mishap was 
startling proof of the fact that the sensory per- 
ceptions, even of healthy individuals, are not 
unrestrictedly reliable. 

The reason why physiological sense deceptions 
usually remain without ill-effect is because in the 
formation of concepts and judgments the com- 
plicated brain mechanism does not make use of 
individual percepts but joins these together by 
means of the association fibers of the brain gan- 
glia, whose activity may be temporarily inter- 
rupted; when, however, the momentary excitement 
which has made the sense deception possible has 
passed away, that brain function which we call 
attention immediately reassumes control. By 
"attention" we understand, as I have explained 
in my book on "Suggestion and Psychotherapy," 
the power of thought concentration by means of 



ORGANS OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 55 

which we are enabled for long periods of time 
to direct the sensory apparatus and the con- 
ceptual contents in a certain direction, without 
allowing ourselves to become confused or to 
deviate from things which are material to those 
which are immaterial. The acme of mental 
action is represented by apperception — that is, 
the clear conception of ideas carried to our con- 
sciousness by sensory impressions combined with 
sensory judgments and conclusions. 

Here we must emphasize the fact that we know 
nothing of the manner or method by which sen- 
sory impressions become transformed into con- 
scious perceptions. The mechanism of thought 
differs from that of the most complex and most 
perfect machine in this feature — no matter how 
well the latter may operate and fulfil the most 
complicated functions, it never possesses any con- 
sciousness of its own activities. For the time 
being we must content ourselves with accepting 
this self-consciousness of mental action as a fact 
proved by experience. 

To how great an extent mental processes are 
dependent on the conditions of bodily organs is 
strikingly shown by a fatigued brain. It is in 



56 CHILD TRAINING 

direct proportion to the increase in the degree 
of fatigue that the brain loses the capability of 
recognizing clearly perceptions produced by sen- 
sory impressions. Attention, without which per- 
ception is impossible, wanes with an increase in 
the degree of brain fatigue. This fatigue may 
be measured in a simple manner by aid of peri- 
metry or the test of the visual field. By peri- 
metry, for instance, we can easily demonstrate in 
children that at the end of a lesson which has 
fatigued them, when they are unable longer to 
put forth as much attention as they did at the 
beginning, the field of vision has become restricted 
in a marked degree. The intimate relationship 
between mental action and the nervous apparatus, 
therefore, has once more been clearly demon- 
strated by the dependence of attention and apper- 
ceptional capability upon the intensity of sensory 
impressions. 

The following incident well exemplifies the 
strange working of attention. Two telegraphers 
were occupied at their respective apparatus, one 
receiving and the other sending dispatches. Both 
were experts in their work. The operator at the 
sending apparatus, in the sounds coming from 



ORGANS OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 57 

the receiving apparatus alongside, recognized a 
familiar name, and, curious to know more, called 
to the receiving operator who had transcribed 

the message, "What has Jennie N been doing 

now?" To his astonishment his absent-minded 
colleague replied, "I do not know, I was not pay- 
ing attention," and kept right on receiving and 
transcribing. This operator had been receiving 
messages faultlessly, transcribing them correctly 
word for word, had answered the question of his 
friend without stopping his work, and, as he 
afterward admitted, had been thinking of nothing 
else but his wife who was sick at home. 

This occurrence gives us an example of an 
automatic activity of the brain so perfected 
through long practise that attention could be 
entirely excluded from the work in hand without 
in any way disturbing the orderly process of 
brain function involved in it. At any rate, it 
is clear from this that where the power of 
attention is present, occasional sense deceptions 
may obtain a transitory but not a permanent 
influence upon the brain and mental activity. 

In psychically abnormal individuals the power 
of attention is wanting. They are unable to con- 



58 CHILD TRAINING 

centrate their thoughts, to combine and compare 
the various perceptions with each other. In con- 
sequence, they lack critical power, which explains 
why their entire mental activity is governed one- 
sidedly by certain auditory or visual hallucina- 
tions, or by any kind of delusion. Their entire 
mental life is directed into false channels be- 
cause all their concepts and judgments are built 
upon false premises which can not be corrected. 
Many psychically abnormal individuals, whether 
children or adults, will frequently be found to 
think and act logically as soon as a delusional 
idea, which is dominating them, is acknowledged 
to be correct. The mentally disordered fre- 
quently possess a large store of ideas, but these 
represent for them just so much dead capital, 
because they coordinate the individual ideas not 
in accordance with their actual values, but in 
accordance with their actual relationship to a 
certain basal disordered concept. The healthy 
person, on the other hand, by allowing his entire 
conceptual circle to come into action through 
constant association and comparison of old and 
new impressions, is constantly learning more 
accurately to differentiate correct and false per- 



ORGANS OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 59 

ceptions, to exclude erroneous percepts, and to 
permit himself to be governed in his deter- 
minations only by correct considerations. The 
store of experiences which we owe to the activity 
of our sensory nerves is one collected gradually, 
and it becomes conserved, as we have already 
seen, through the memory. The conceptual circle 
remains narrow when the sensory impressions 
are false or indistinct and when the memory is 
not to be trusted. But it also remains restricted 
when certain sensory organs do not functionate 
at all, as is the case in blindness or deafness, 
either congenital or acquired in early childhood. 
If one could imagine all perceptions coming from 
the interior of the body to be extinguished, a 
person would no longer be able to recognize him- 
self in relation to the outer world as a special 
being; a state of unconsciousness would supervene 
without necessitating a cessation of vital activity. 
This state of unconsciousness would, in case no 
single sensory organ carried out its function, 
exist from birth. If a normally developed indi- 
vidual were overtaken by such a fate in later 
years, after he had already acquired a large fund 
of conceptual experience, it would naturally take 



60 CHILD TRAINING 

a longer time until complete mental obscurity 
sets in. Our experience with the blind and the 
deaf shows us that their conceptual circle is 
much narrower when their defects have existed 
from birth than when they have been acquired 
in later years. At any rate, the cases are not 
rare in which individuals born blind or deaf, 
or even those who have come into the world 
suffering both those afflictions and who, there- 
fore, could never obtain any idea of color or 
tone, have developed normally. The absence of 
certain sensory impressions and the gap thereby 
created in their circle of ideas can, therefore, 
through constant practise, especially in the blind, 
be at any rate partially replaced by a better 
development of the existing sensory organs. In 
evidence of this I need only refer to Helen 
Keller, who, notwithstanding her blindness and 
deafness from birth, was able successfully to 
acquire an academic education. Naturally, such 
a case constitutes the exception. The rule is 
that, without unusual mental talent, the blind 
and the deaf, and particularly the blind-deaf, 
will, notwithstanding all effort and all methods 
of instruction specially adapted to their infir- 



ORGANS OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 61 

mity, retain a psychic deficiency which is in 
accord with their sensory defect. 

A certain restriction of the conceptual circle 
will also be present where the sensory percep- 
tions are delayed. The speed with which the 
stimulation of peripheral nerves is conducted to 
the brain can be accurately measured. On the 
average it is about forty meters per second. If, 
for instance, the foot of a person be pricked 
with a needle and he be instructed to move his 
right forefinger in a certain manner as an indi- 
cation that he has felt the sting, a certain time 
will elapse between the prick of the needle and 
the movement of the finger. The first stage in 
this stimulation of the sensory nerves will be 
the conduction of the excitation from the nerves 
of the leg to the spinal cord, and in turn through 
the cord to the brain stem and the white medul- 
lary substance and into the gray cortex of the 
post-central convolutions. On the road various 
transfers from one neuron to another take place. 
The second state is constituted by the conscious 
appreciation of the stimulus as pain and the 
setting into action of the impulse of the will for 
the movement of the index finger. The third 



62 CHILD TRAINING 

stage is the conduction of the motor impulses 
from the motor brain cells to the musculature of 
the index finger, and the fourth and final stage 
is the muscular contraction and the movement of 
the finger. If the moment of the prick and 
that of the movement of the finger be registered 
by means of an electrical apparatus, the time 
which intervenes between the two, the so-called 
"reaction time," may be accurately measured. 
If this experiment is repeated when a prick is 
inflicted upon the hip, instead of the foot, the 
reaction time will be of somewhat shorter dura- 
tion, for then the course which the stimulation 
the sensory nerves will have to take until it 
reaches the brain cortex will be a shorter one. 

If, under otherwise equal conditions, the re- 
action time is longer, nerve conduction is re- 
tarded. Usually this is dependent upon fatigue 
of the brain. Hence this method is also adapted 
for testing the exhaustibility of the brain. An 
individual with a comparatively prolonged re- 
action time, and in whom, therefore, nerve 
conduction is retarded, in consequence of the 
more rapid exhaustibility of the brain, compre- 
hends with much more difficulty than one whose 



ORGANS OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 63 

ganglion cells have been less used up. It requires 
a much longer time for him to interpret sensory 
impressions, and to arrange them within their 
perceptual circle. Sometimes his sensory per- 
ception is so retarded that, with his eyes bound 
up, he is unable to designate accurately where 
his skin has been touched, whether he has re- 
ceived a prick, been touched with hot or cold 
water, or made to feel some other unusual sen- 
sation. 

"We have thus seen that the integrity of the 
organs of special sense, the nerve conductors 
and the brain ganglia, must cooperate with a 
good memory in order that not only correct but 
also numerous sensory impressions and percepts 
may arise. The whole of our higher mental life 
is, as I have already said, bound to the cerebral 
cortex, to the entire cortex and not to single 
lobes and convolutions, altho it must be acknowl- 
edged that a greater development of certain 
portions of the cortex favors certain capabilities 
and thus endows consciousness and character with 
an individual impress. This, however, in nowise 
controverts the fact that the centers for motion, 
speech, etc., are limited to certain definite areas 



64 CHILD TRAINING 

of the brain. At any rate memory, thought 
association, apperception, the activities of the 
will, and all higher psychic functions run their 
course in the entire cerebral cortex. That the 
ganglion cells of the cerebellujn participate in 
these activities can not be doubted, but it can not 
be proved that conscious perceptions take place 
in the cerebellum or that volitional acts are 
incited from it. 

The greater development of single lobes and 
convolutions of the cerebral cortex is partly con- 
genital, partly acquired in consequence of 
practise. In the main it is the product of both 
factors combined. The millions of nerve cells 
which are arranged in the convoluted gray cortex 
are most intimately interconnected with one an- 
other. The impressions which they acquire by 
means of the receiving tracts thus become an 
integral part of the individual's mentality, and 
cause it to respond to the excitations of the outer 
world in a special manner. The intensity with 
which the interaction and the assimilation of the 
sensory impressions takes place is, as we have 
already said, a varying one. It may be abnor- 
mally retarded or it may be unusually aceeler- 



ORGANS OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 65 

ated. The latter is the case in persons of great 
talent or genius — in whom then, in order to 
repeat, the capability of rapid intercommunication 
between the ganglion cells, the lightning-like 
reaction may be partly congenital, partly ac- 
quired. What chemical and physical processes 
take place in the reposing or active nerve cells 
is not known, and we have no knowledge what- 
soever as to how these mechanical processes 
become converted into the physiological manifes- 
tations of consciousness, will, etc. We know 
only that certain nerve tracts gradually become 
"passable," so that the transmitted perceptions 
or will impulses take place more rapidly and 
with greater precision. We also know that when 
a loss of certain direct connections between the 
ganglion cells and the nerve fibers occurs, the 
organism learns to use the neighboring ones, so 
that their performances are carried out by means 
of a vicarious activity, but in a less certain and 
exact manner. 

An understanding of the ways and means by 
which the highly complicated processes of con- 
sciousness become activated can best be formed 
by a study of the course of development through 



G6 CHILD TRAINING 

which the embryonal and infantile activity passes. 
This, however, will be discust in a special chapter. 
Here I would merely touch upon the psychic 
functions of the more advanced periods of life. 
In old age the ability to receive new impressions 
and to form new association tracts decreases, 
either because the ganglion cells have become 
overfilled and have no more place for anything 
new, or because the brain substance has become 
unresponsive to new formations and new tracts, 
in which case the psychic functions take their 
course in the accustomed paths only, but not 
infrequently with great facility. If the previous 
mental store has been a comprehensive one, 
efficiency, even when no new impressions are 
assimilated, may be very marked and persist 
even into the most advanced age, a fact which 
may be corroborated by the study of the lives 
of many great men. In the majority of people, 
however, when old age sets in, the mental powers 
begin to decrease in all fields, a process which 
gradually leads up to a state of senile dementia, 
there being no well-defined border line to mark 
the transition. A considerable influence in the 
production of the senile changes in the nervous 



ORGANS OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 67 

central organs is exerted by arterio-sclerosis — a 
gradual hardening and calcification of the blood- 
vessels — ^which leads to interference with the 
circulation and with the nutrition of the corres- 
ponding organs and parts of the body. Naturally, 
when this condition exists, the blood-supply and 
the nutrition of the brain will also suffer, and 
this can not remain without influence upon the 
psychic functions. 

During sleep the brain rests. Of so great im- 
portance to the central organs, as well as the 
peripheral nerves, are the regular and prolonged 
periods of recuperation which the nervous system 
obtains during sleep, that in order to ascertain 
the extreme effects of loss of sleep it was deemed 
advisable to make experiments upon animals 
rather than on human beings. These experi- 
ments have shown that animals well fed but 
prevented from obtaining sleep, waste away much 
more rapidly than those deprived of nourish- 
ment but allowed to sleep. 

As sleep we designate that state in which the 
higher psychic functions of the cerebral cortex 
are absent, while the automatic movements of 
the heart, lungs, digestive organs, etc., continue, 



68 CHILD TRAINING 

and the reflex movements remain unimpaired. 
Therefore, the pupils of a sleeping person will 
contract when the eyelids are raised, a defense 
movement will be made when he is tickled, etc. 
But a person even in the most profound sleep 
remains impressionable to external influence, for 
otherwise he could not be awakened. Mental 
activity, therefore, does not cease entirely during 
sleep, but is only signally reduced. This is 
corroborated by those psychic processes which 
take place during sleep, and which we call 
dreams. 

We have no distinct understanding of the true 
cause of sleep. The fact that man can not do 
without sleep is not an adequate explanation. 
What we should know is what provisions nature 
has instituted in order to bring about sleep. 
We know that by means of a diminution in the 
blood supply of the brain, faintness or uncon- 
sciousness will be produced. For this reason 
some investigators assume the cause of sleep 
should be sought in an anemia of the brain. 
There is, however, a great difference between 
sleep and the unconsciousness of a faint; the 
one is a physiological, the other a pathological 



ORGANS OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 69 

state. This is also shown by their outward 
manifestations. Persons unconscious in conse- 
quence of anemia of the brain are markedly pale, 
whereas healthy persons during sleep show a 
redness of the face, which indicates there is no 
anemia of the brain. Other investigators, there- 
fore, assume that sleep is a result of the accu- 
mulation of catabolic products in the blood which, 
acting upon the brain, produce a kind of uncon- 
sciousness. Others again seek the cause of sleep 
in a dearth of oxygen in the body. During the 
waking state and in consequence of a person's 
varied activities more oxygen is consumed than 
the lungs are capable of receiving. Sleep, there- 
fore, makes possible the accumulating and storing 
of oxygen so it may be expended in muscular 
movement during the waking period. This 
explanation, however, is also unsatisfactory, for 
mere inactivity — rest alone — should be quite 
sufficient to bring about a storage of oxygen. 
Furthermore, the quantity of oxygen inhaled 
during sleep is certainly less than that inhaled 
during the waking state. Whether, therefore, 
the need for sleep, and its precursory signs, 
yawning, etc., are dependent upon a lack of 



70 CHILD TRAININa 

oxygen must remain questionable. Through ex- 
periments upon animals it is believed to have 
been proved that the delicate prolongations of 
the brain ganglia contract during sleep and 
thereby the connection between the ganglion cells 
is broken and the normal flow of thoughts be- 
comes inhibited. But even this does not disclose 
the true cause of sleep. For even if we admit 
the anatomical fact to be correct, we must still 
ask, Why do the dendrites and neurites contract? 
The common view that sleep is due to fatigue is 
also incorrect. Many people sleep without being 
fatigued, and many are unable to sleep because 
they are over-fatigued or exhausted. Hence we 
see it is not easy to form a definite opinion in 
regard to the true cause of sleep. 

The sleeping and waking states can not be 
sharply differentiated. During a state of half- 
sleep or wakeful sleep, the dream percepts and 
the true sense perceptions combine into one com- 
plete picture and falsify the actual happenings. 
Sleep intoxication also is a state of wakeful sleep. 
The awaking of a person who is sleep-drunk does 
not occur quickly and completely, but slowly, so 
that his dream images are carried over into his 



ORGANS OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 71 

state of semi-wakefulness. He is unable to 
differentiate accurately between his dreams and 
actual happenings, confuses persons and objects 
of his surroundings, and is afflicted with those 
physiological sense deceptions of which we have 
already spoken. 

Sleep, as stated, does not completely interrupt 
the connection between the mind and the sensory 
perceptions. Altho it is generally correct that 
sleep is to a certain degree dependent upon an 
absence of sensory stimulation, and that sleep 
will be wanting when the mind is kept alert by 
strong sensory impressions, loud noises, bright 
light or color perceptions, etc., nevertheless, even 
during sleep the mind remains active under the 
influence of those sensory stimuli which are 
always present. The mental activity of the sleep- 
ing state, however, differs from that of the 
waking state, firstly, in the fantastic transforma- 
tions of sensory impressions ; and, secondly, in the 
confusion of the flow of ideas. The brain activity 
which takes place during sleep we call dreaming. 
Whether there exists a dreamless sleep, a state in 
which the mind is completely inactive, can be 
determined only with difficulty. When we are 



72 CHILD TRAINING 

awakened from a deep sleep we always note the 
remnant of a dream. On the other hand if, after 
a normal awakenmg, we believe we have not 
dreamed, this may simply be due to the fact that 
the dream has left no memory-picture behind. 
Dreams, just like thoughts which occur during the 
waking state, are governed by the course which 
the original structure of the brain and acquired 
education have given the association processes 
and through which the activity of one part of the 
brain cortex stimulates other cortical areas inter- 
connected with it by means of association tracts. 
During the waking state the activity of the brain 
is determined by the influence which is exerted by 
the outer world. The sensory impressions furnish 
the material for the ideas, and the understanding 
brings about the connection between them. In sleep, 
on the other hand, the brain elaborates these per- 
cepts of itself, not only through the aid of memory 
pictures but also through unusually active sen- 
sory stimuli, which are transformed in a fantastic 
way because the control of waking consciousness 
is missing. Free, easy breathing arouses in the 
dreaming person the idea of flying, oppressive 
breathing produces the sensation of fear, the 



ORGANS OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 73 

noise of falling rain is converted into an inunda- 
tion, a niQsquito bite into the stab of a dagger, 
a warming bottle into a siesta in the tropics, the 
humming of a fly into a roaring storm, a ray 
of light into paradise, the exposure of a part of 
the body to the cold air into a sleigh-ride on a 
winter's night, etc. Dreams will always corres- 
pond, more or less, to the conceptual contents of 
waking consciousness. Since, therefore, during 
sleep ideas and thoughts lack their logical govern- 
ment — that is, the regulating supervision and the 
restricting influence of the actual sense percep- 
tions — the association of ideas during the dream 
will go on in disordered confusion and often will 
combine the most unusual and the most senseless 
matters in bewildering alteration. Uninterrupt- 
edly the picture changes, without causing us any 
astonishment. This confusion in the ideational 
processes and the lack of judgment which it pro- 
duces also involve the concepts of time. A dream 
often lasts only for seconds, and still it may seem 
like an eternity. The dreams are all the more 
intense the less the flight of the imagination is 
inhibited by conscious attention to objects and 
thoughts, or the less it is restricted in consequence 



74 CHILD TRAINING 

of distinct sense perceptions. Children and young, 
impressionable persons often talk in their sleep, but 
this alone, in the absence of other signs of nervous- 
ness, is not to be considered a neurotic symptom. 

B. Development of the Child's Mental Activity 

The earliest movements of the human embryo 
and of the child are entirely reflex. The first 
sensory impressions are, undoubtedly, incited in 
the fetus from the entire surface of the body. To 
these soon become ^.dded impressions from the 
postures of the joints and from the contractions of 
the muscles, for these organs, too, are provided 
with sensory nerves. All these impressions find 
their way to the cortex of the cerebrum, especially 
to the central and parietal convolutions. The 
nerve cells located in the cortex, even in the fetus, 
possess the property of permanently storing sen- 
sory impressions and of reproducing them when 
needed in the shape of memory pictures. 

After birth, memory pictures of visual per- 
'ceptions become stored in the occipital lobes, those 
of auditory perception in the temporal lobes, those 
of impressions of smell and taste in their corres- 



DEVELOPMENT OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 75 

ponding regions of the brain cortex. The great 
significance which the visual, gustatory, and 
olfactory sensations and their memory pictures, 
elicited in the infant by its sucking at the breast, 
have upon the arousal of consciousness and will, 
is generally known. These memory pictures, lying 
ready in separate parts of the brain cortex, become 
connected with one another through the associa- 
tion tracts. From the associated processes, and 
therefore, from the connected perceptions and 
memory pictures, there gradually arise ideas, 
thoughts, and judgments — in short, the existing 
contents of consciousness, and, finally, the entire 
higher psychic life. As a special example of this 
developmental method, we may mention the pro- 
cesses involved in the acquisition of speech, to 
which we shall give more extended attention later. 
Like the beginnings of psychic activity in earliest 
childhood, so the further development of mental 
powers of a riper age takes place as a sequel to 
the ordinary experiences of life. In constantly in- 
creasing numbers sensory perceptions and their 
memory pictures become deposited in complexes of 
brain ganglia and are brought to the consciousness 
by adequate stimuli. The contents of mental life 



76 CHILD TRAINING 

become extended and intensified through collabora- 
tion with the new perceptions, and this coopera- 
tion in turn is made possible and facilitated by 
the increase in the number of nerve cells and nerve 
tracts from year to year. 

Furthermore, the formation of new association 
tracts greatly aids the direct connection between 
the sensory and motor spheres, as we may easily 
understand by observing our ovsm acquirement of 
new accomplishments, even at more advanced ages. 
This is shown more specifically by the manner in 
which walking, horseback riding, bicycle riding, 
reading and writing, piano playing, etc., are 
learned. In the beginning all these activities are 
carried out in connection with many av/kward 
associated movements, it being difficult for the will 
to stimulate immediately the proper tracts and 
thus to bring about the proper position of the 
muscles and joints. After we have acquired a 
certain dexterity, the proper movements, those 
which correspond to the existing sensory impres- 
sions, are easily set into action with hardly any 
control by consciousness, almost or entirely with- 
out any voluntary action — in other words, they 
have become automatic or reflex. As an example 



DEVELOPMENT OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 77 

of the manner in which certain nerve tracts may 
become ''passable," in consequence of constant 
practise, so that they will act almost automatically, 
we may take the scientist or the journalist, who is 
obliged, on account of his profession, to read 
constantly and rapidly. While the inexperienced 
reader will study letters, syllables, and words, 
and, in order to produce the tone pictures which 
belong to these words, will read aloud or, at any 
rate, think of the sounds of the words, the prac- 
tised person loses no time in that manner. At a 
glance he comprehends entire sentences and conse- 
quently he absorbs the contents of an entire page 
with extreme rapidity. In time he becomes so well 
acquainted with the expression and mode of 
thought of individual speakers and writers, that, 
with only moderate attention, aided by certain 
peculiarities of expression, or by certain frequently 
recurrent constructions of sentences, he is able 
most easily to follow the lecture or in the briefest 
time to read the essay, and, to the astonishment 
of the unpractised, to reproduce the essential con- 
tents of what he has heard or read. 

It is a long and difficult road from the early 
speech acquirements of the child to that dexterity 



78 CHILD TRAINING 

which will enable one's sensory apparatus, brain 
ganglia, association tracts and motor organs to 
respond immediately and properly to external 
stimuli. This becomes manifest not only in learn- 
ing to read but also in learning to speak. Articu- 
late speech is exclusively a gift of human beings, 
while, as we know, voice and song are widely 
spread in the animal world. It is true that, by 
means of the voice and its varied modulations, 
animals as well as human beings possess the power 
of communicating with one another. Parrots and 
certain other birds are even able to imitate words, 
but this imitation does not deserve the name of 
speech, since the birds do not attach any definite 
meaning to the words they utter. Man owes his 
perfected speech essentially to his higher mental 
capabilities; for, in order to speak, thought pro- 
cesses such as can be produced only by the human 
brain are requisite. 

The seat of the faculty of speech, the speech 
center, is located in the left frontal lobe of the 
cerebrum. Disease, or destruction of this, results 
in speech paralysis, for if either of those condi- 
tions exist the organs of speech can no longer be 
set into motion. This state is known as motor 



DEVELOPMENT OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 79 

aphasia. Such aphasia may exist without loss of 
the capability of sensory perception, apperception 
and thought association. It is precisely the power 
of expression of ideas and thoughts by means of 
audible sounds which is lost. In sensory aphasia, 
on the other hand, auditory or visual impressions 
can not be perceived because their centers are 
absent or are destroyed. These states are described 
respectively by the terms "word-deafness" and 
"word-blindness." "When both auditory and visual 
centers have lost their power of functionating, the 
resulting afl9ict,ion is called "soul-blindness." 
Aphasia may exist, however, even when percep- 
tional power is present, as is the case, for instance, 
when, in consequence of memory having been lost, 
motor stimulation of the organs of speech does not 
take place. This state is called amnesic aphasia. 
Later we shall recur to the various forms of 
aphasia, which play an important role in the 
mental life of the child as well as that of the adult. 
At this point, however, I would draw attention to 
the fact that individuals whose brains are too small 
never learn to think and speak perfectly and con- 
nectedly. 

The development of speech can be best under- 



80 CHILD TRAINING 

stood when viewed in the light of the fundamental 
law of biogenesis. According to this law, the 
development of the individual is a curtailed repe- 
tition of the development of the entire species. In a 
way, therefore, the development of the entire human 
race, from its earliest stage to its present cultural 
eminence, is crowded together into the development 
of the child. While, however, the human race re- 
quired thousands of years to rise to its present 
state of civilization, the child in a few years 
traverses this almost immeasurable road. This is 
possible only because the struggle for existence, 
the competition of many individuals for the limited 
existing supply of the means necessary to preserve 
life, has persistently driven people to an unceasing 
output of all their energies. Under this stress 
they made discoveries and inventions, gradually 
arrived at a recognition of the laws of nature, and 
learned to make the inexhaustible gifts and forces 
of the earth subservient to their own needs. Any 
one who remained behind in this universal com- 
petition was not adapted to the struggle for exist- 
ence, and, sooner or later, was forced to succumb. 

The survivors, the "fittest" as Darwin has 
called them, were just those individuals whose 



DEVELOPMENT OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 81 

organs adapted themselves to the augmented de- 
mands or who, in other words, developed more and 
more highly. They acquired new qualities which 
in time became part of their permanent store of 
resources, and which by heredity were transmitted 
to their descendants. Progressive development 
then made it impossible for these descendants to 
become anchored at the stage of development which 
they had inherited from their progenitors, but 
obliged them in their turn to acquire new qualities. 
"What was sufficient for the progenitors no longer 
sufficed for their descendants, and what was ample 
for the needs of the latter was no longer suited 
to the needs of their children. Consequently, the 
latest descendants were always in the lead, being 
equipped at birth with qualities which their fore- 
bears did not originally possess. 

All cultural progress, therefore, briefly stated, 
consists in the constant acquirement of new quali- 
ties by means of which the struggle for existence 
can be more and more successfully made. The 
acquirement of the additional qualities could be 
accomplished in a single generation, but the trans- 
mission of them could be effected only when, in 
the course of generations, they had lost their new- 



82 CHILD TRAINING 

ness and had become transformed into essential, 
' ' constitutional ' ' qualities. 

Heredity is, therefore, made up of two factors. 
The one factor causes certain qualities to remain 
constant. Through the second, however, in conse- 
quence of the influence of external conditions of 
life, certain traits become altered, and thus new 
qualities are called into being, which may be ser- 
viceable or disadvantageous in the struggle for 
existence. The serviceable ones are those which, 
as a result of inherited adaptability, tend toward 
a higher stage of development. The disadvan- 
tageous ones are those which, as a result of in- 
herited weakness, make for a diminished power of 
resistance to altered conditions of life. Were the 
tendency toward a maintenance of parental quali- 
ties not transmitted to the children, the latter could 
resemble their parents neither physically nor 
psychically. And were the capability of variation 
not transmitted from parent to child, the latter 
would always be the unaltered replica of its 
progenitor — physically as well as psychically. 

The law of constancy and the law of variability 
are therefore, so to speak, at war with each other. 
"Without the law of constancy the human race 



DEVELOPMENT OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 83 

would be subject to unceasing alterations from 
generation to generation. "Without the law of 
variability, on the other hand, no change could 
come about. The changes in the human race take 
place slowly when the law of constancy predomi- 
nates, and rapidly when the law of variability is 
in the ascendancy. The more the quality of 
adaptability to altered conditions of life has been 
pronounced in a child's progenitors, the more 
rapidly will it traverse the various stages of human 
development. The less its ancestors have possest 
the power of acquiring new traits, the slower will 
be its developmental growth. The child remains 
backward because its .ancestors have remained 
backward. This does not mean that the ancestral 
tree of a normal child should be expected to have 
none but normal branches, or that of a deficient 
child none but deficient ones. The hereditary 
transmission of useful as well as of harmful 
qualities need not be direct, but may skip several 
generations. 

Johann Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian monk, 
whose life purpose was really not theology but the 
investigation of natural science, and who died in 
1884 as Abbot in the Monastery of Briinn, has 



84 CHILD TRAINING 

made a special study of the laws of heredity as 
they pertain to plants. Others have applied his 
methods to determine the laws of heredity among 
animals. As a result of his observations and ex- 
periments he evolved a law which has been named 
after him as Mendel's law, and which, as modified 
by later discoveries, is as follows: In the crossing 
of two species of animals or plants which differ 
from each other in a certain characteristic, the 
descendants in the first generation almost all show 
only the quality belonging to one parent, while 
the quality belonging to the other has apparently 
been lost. The quality thus transmitted to the 
descendants is known as (the "dominant," the 
other as the "recessive" quality. The terms 
"dominant" and "recessive" were employed by 
Mendel in a purely metaphorical way to explain 
this one great fact in the first generation of cross- 
ings. 

Mendel's results were obtained by fertilizing the 
stigma of a tall pea plant with pollen from a 
dwarf one, or vice versa. In such a crossing of a 
tall and a dwarf plant, the products of the first 
generation are all tall, and not, as might be as- 
sumed, of a medium height. Mendel called the 



DEVELOPMENT OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 85 

tall quality dominant and the dwarf quality reces- 
sive, saying ''the term recessive had been chosen 
because the characters thereby designated, with- 
drew or entirely disappeared in the hybrid," In 
the second generation the recessive quality re- 
appears in one-fourth of the offspring while three- 
fourths show the dominant one. In the succeeding 
generations the proportion of offspring having the 
recessive trait remains constant, while of those with 
the dominant characteristic two-thirds remain con- 
stant and one-third are subject to the change 
mentioned. The rule according to which individual 
qualities of the ascendants remain constant in the 
descendants is called the rule of maintenance. 
The other rule, according to which certain qualities 
at first disappear and later reappear, is called the 
rule of discontinuity. A mixture of the parental 
qualities never takes place in hybrids, but inevit- 
ably the differentiating characteristics of the one 
parent alone is transmitted. 

Altho the observations and experiments of 
Mendel and his followers were confined entirely to 
plants and animals — for it would have been im- 
possible for them to undertake similar experiments 
with human beings — Mendel's law is of great im- 



86 CHILD TRAININa 

portance for our comprehension of the manifesta- 
tions of human heredity. We now know that it is 
not chance but a law of nature which causes this 
or that quality to remain constant in certain species 
of plants and animals, and which causes other 
qualities now to appear, now to disappear. 

Numerous experiments and investigators have 
shown the Mendelian law to be no hypothesis, but 
a fact. Since there can be no special law of nature 
which will apply to the development of plants and 
animals and not to the development of man, the 
application of the Mendelian law to human 
heredity and development was inevitable. It is 
true this fact was not recognized until long after 
Mendel's death, and only within the last few 
years has this law received close attention. Now 
it is generally and enthusiastically recognized. 
According to certain authors the occurrence of 
brachydactylism, polydactylism, and certain color- 
ations of the skin, hair and iris, are to be ex- 
plained by means of the Mendelian law. And 
since we know, furthermore, that the psychic 
manifestations of life are nothing else than 
functions of the psychic organs, especially of the 
central nervous system, it is in the highest degree 



DEVELOPMENT OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 87 

probable that the Mendelian law will have the 
same applicability to the hereditary transmission 
of psychic properties as it has in relation to those 
peculiar physical traits which we have mentioned. 
Nevertheless, it seems to me Bateson goes too 
far when he says, "Had Mendel's work come into 
the hands of Darwin, it is not too much to say that 
the history of the development of evolutionary 
philosophy would have been very different from 
that which we have witnessed." Above all we 
should not forget that it is only a surmise, not a 
proved fact, that heredity in accordance with the 
rule evolved by Mendel takes place in man. The 
material is still lacking for this proof, which could 
be obtained only by the construction of accurately 
elaborated family trees of different races and of 
mixed races. An opinion of value could be formu- 
lated only after we were in possession of a large 
observational material, which must cover many 
generations. Then, again, I do not believe there 
is an essential contradiction between Darwin and 
Mendel. Both show us that the inheritance of 
certain properties is not dependent upon accidental 
happenings, and, even assuming the Mendelian law 
to be applicable in its full extent to man, the 



88 CHILD TRAINING 

Darwinian theory of evolution would in no way be 
overthrown, but, on the contrary, would be ampli- 
fied thereby. Were we sure of this applicability 
of Mendel's law, we could with fair certainty fore- 
tell how the offspring of parents with certain 
qualities would ultimately develop; but for the 
present our knowledge in this regard is confined 
to the hereditary transmission of constitutional 
anomalies. With Mendel's law once established in 
relation to man, we would be able, by applying the 
two rules of Mendel (the rule of maintenance and 
the rule of discontinuity) to influence in a marked 
degree the development of future generations; for, 
when the germ cells of parents having certain 
characteristics were joined, then such or such off- 
spring would be produced, and it would therefore 
only be necessary to bring about the junction of 
germ cells whose product would conform to a 
favorable prognosis. On the other hand, we would 
only have to prevent those germ cells from joining 
whose product would furnish an unfavorable 
prognosis. This would be the theoretical side of 
the question. 

Practically, however, all our best-laid calcula- 
tions would frequently be overturned. Above all. 



DEVELOPMENT OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 89 

love, the most powerful passion next to Imnger, can 
not be commanded. Then again, we never know 
to what conditions of life the experimental off- 
spring will be subject. These conditions may be 
so favorable that the bad prognosis will not be 
fulfilled, or, on the other hand, they may be so 
unfavorable that the best prognosis will be nulli- 
fied. 

At any rate, and under all circumstances, we 
would in all probability have to wait for many 
generations, until such a propagational policy had 
taken root, before any measurable result could be 
observed. So long as all the surrounding condi- 
tions are unknown, the Mendelian law will have 
but the same value for the purification of the 
human race as meteorology has for the prognosti- 
cation of the weather. As is well known, the dis- 
appointments of the latter are not infrequent, not- 
withstanding that all theoretical assumptions 
would lead us to expect this or that change to 
take place. 

In my opinion, therefore, the chief significance 
of the Mendelian law is in the control of plant and 
animal development by means of a crossing of dis- 
similar germ cells and the resulting possibility of 



90 CHILD TRAININa 

maintaining or discontinuing certain qualities 
through suitable selection of the crossing pairs. 
What nature effects spontaneously in this field we 
are to do experimentally — that is, by artificially 
substituting nature's conditions. These conditions, 
however, so far as they concern the development 
of man, are still too little known to permit us to 
hope that a utilization of the Mendelian law will 
enable us to produce a permanency or an increase 
of desirable qualities in our offspring, or to prevent 
a transmission of detrimental qualities. 

Still, I have deemed it necessary to sketch the 
problem of heredity as it is viewed by science at 
its present stage. Heredity plays a most import- 
ant role, under normal as well as under abnormal 
conditions, in the development of the child's mind. 
Let us not strive for Utopian conditions but let 
us meet the facts as we find them. Upon the one 
hand we must guard ourselves against an over- 
estimation of the Mendelian law, in so far as this 
law has found its application to man; upon the 
other, we must not fail to do anything which might 
counteract the transmission of hereditary taint. 
To guide us in this to some extent, we have at 
hand certain tangible facts which will furnish us 



DEVELOPMENT OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 91 

with a means of procedure. These, however, must 
be the topic of a subsequent chapter. 

Let us now return to the development of the 
power of speech. I have said the development of 
speech can best be understood by means of the 
fundamental law of biogenesis. Speech places man 
far above every animal. But just as man once 
occupied an animal-like plane, and just as this 
plane still finds its expression in the human embryo, 
which during its first weeks can hardly be dis- 
tinguished from the embryo of certain animals, so 
has human speech originated from animal-like 
tones. In the same measure as the higher mental 
faculties of man developed, grew the need for 
transmitting his thoughts to other human beings 
liy means of articulate tones. Articulate speech 
then became for him not only a medium of com- 
municating his thoughts, but also a means through 
which the development and growth of his mind 
was brought about and facilitated. With the 
development of the understanding the power of 
articulate speech increased, and with the develop- 
ment of the organs of speech, adapted to the in- 
creased demands which were made upon them, the 
faculty of thought became greater. Just as the 



92 CHILD TRAINING 

child traverses the development of its ancestors the 
more rapidly the better they have been equipped 
with the qualities adapted for the struggles for 
existence; so under correspondingly favoring cir- 
cumstances of heredity will the child the more 
rapidly raise itself in its speech development from 
the plane of animal-like tones to the capability of 
expressing itself in orderly speech and in musical 
notes. A less generously endowed child, however, 
will, in consequence of the law of heredity, require 
a much longer time to traverse the single stages 
of developmental history in its own development. 
And it may well be that such an individual will 
persist upon a lower, animal-like developmental 
plane, and be able to give vent only to animal-like 
tones, long after it has grown up. 

In order to speak we require above all a circle 
of percepts, which are interconnected by means of 
"association"; an additional requisite is an ap- 
paratus by means of which the voice can be pro- 
duced. This vocal organ, the musical instrument 
of man, is the larynx. The voice, however, be- 
comes speech only when the inarticulate tones pro- 
duced by the larynx have, with the help of the 
palate, the tongue, and the movements of the 



DEVELOPMENT OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 93 

mouth and lips, been transformed into articulate 
ones. In order that the voice may be formed in 
the larynx, air must be forced through the trachea 
and the larynx, so that the vocal cords which are 
stretched within it may be thrown into tone- 
producing vibrations. 

The entire vocal apparatus may be compared to 
an ordinary whistle. Its constituent parts are: 
1. The tone-forming body, the larynx, to whose 
anterior and posterior walls two elastic membranes, 
the vocal cords, are attached in such a way that 
the space between them is widened or narrowed 
as the air passes through it. 2. A bellows, the 
chest and the lungs within it, which produces the 
current of air. 3. A windpipe, the bronchus, which 
carries the current of air from the lungs into the 
trachea. 4. An attachment piece, the oral and 
nasal cavity, which articulates the tones and con- 
ducts them outward. The naso-pharynx constitutes 
the sounding-board for the tones which arise 
through the vocal cords being thrown into vibra- 
tion by the current of air, which passes from the 
lungs in varying strength. By means of the vary- 
ing position of the soft palate and its connection 
with the nasal passages, this sounding-board is 



94 CHILD TRAINING 

subject to diverse modifications. In order to emit 
the various vowels and consonants clearly and 
purely, certain muscles must be set into action, 
and for this reason the teaching of correct speech 
is one of the most difficult tasks of the training 
art. 



II. THE INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 
OF THE CHILD 

Mere modification and adaptation of the physi- 
ologic-psychologic laws which govern the mind 
of the adult will never enable us to comprehend 
the psychology of childhood. The child is not, 
bodily or mentally, a miniature reproduction of 
the grown-up, nor can psychology of childhood be 
looked upon as a part or a derivative of general 
psychology. In the one case we are dealing with 
a finished product, in the other with something 
which is still in the making. For this reason the 
psychology of childhood is governed by special 
principles that can not be applied to a consideration 
of the processes which make up the mind of the 
adult. Like all other modern outgrowths of 
science, child psychology bears the impress of the 
doctrine of evolution. 

The basic biogenetic law, as formulated by 
Haeckel, that ontogenesis, the development of the 
organism, represents the curtailed repetition of 
phylogenesis, the development of the race, if ap- 
plied to psychic activity, would mean that the 
mental evolutional process of the human race is, 

95 



96 CHILD TRAINING 

so to speak, reproduced in the stages of mental 
development through which the child passes from 
birth to maturity. Already at its birth the child 
is endowed with instincts and attributes which 
serve for the maintenance of life. To that extent 
it resembles a primitive organized animal. But 
even during its first year, the child's progress is 
astonishing. A comparison of the new-born child 
with itself at the end of the first year will show 
us the enormous amount accomplished toward its 
development in the intervening months. In that 
period it has learned to stand, to move its body 
from place to place by creeping, and in many in- 
stances even to take the first independent foot- 
steps. Articulate speech has commenced ; the child 
is able to recognize people around it, and can 
designate them by the primitive expressions of 
baby-talk. Memory, will, attention, are present in 
their most simple phases. In fact, during the 
first year it has already acquired the entire basic 
equipment necessary for its further development. 
According to Wundt and Heller, two fundamental 
principles characterize the mental development of 
the child — progression and evolution. 

These two principles have compassed the ascent 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 97 

of man from the primal state of nature to the 
present height of culture, and it is they that 
enable the mind of the child to reproduce within 
a few years the chief stages of this long process of 
racial development. 

The steady developmental advance of the child, 
in which each stage forms a stepping-stone to the 
next higher one, constitutes the principle of pro- 
gression. Let us exemplify this by considering 
the acquirement of locomotion. After the first 
few months the child is able to raise its body 
from the horizontal posture which it originally 
kept. Later, on being placed upon the floor, it 
experiences a desire to use its feet, raises itself 
upon them, and momentarily maintains its bal- 
ance. Soon, however, it is no longer satisfied 
simply to maintain this new position, and has the 
desire to move from place to place, to attain a 
certain goal. Unable to coordinate its muscles 
properly for taking steps, the child creeps. At- 
tempts at walking follow, and steady progress 
soon leads to independent locomotion. This 
methodic sequence characterizes the single stages 
of progression involved in the acquirement of the 
ability to walk. 



98 CHILD TRAINING 

Speech is developed in a similar manner. At 
first the child's utterances express merely the 
elementary feelings of pleasure or displeasure. 
Next the child imitates the speech of the people 
about it, and, as a result of the increased pro- 
ficiency acquired by the organs of articulation 
through practise, the production of sounds be- 
comes more manifold and more distinct. Then the 
child acquires a conception of the relationship be- 
tween sounds and the impressions which they 
produce, and, comprehending little by little that 
certain words designate certain ideas, it learns to 
use speech as a means of communication. There- 
after the sound designations or the sound rela- 
tions, as well as the ideas which the child is able 
to convert into speech, become more and more 
manifold. Similarly the development of the 
alimentary apparatus progresses step by step. 
At first, through the congenital sucking and 
swallowing reflexes, the ingestion of food is con- 
fined to the sucking in of the milk; as mushy and 
more solid food is given, the child acquires the 
varied movements of the mouth and tongue neces- 
sary for the comminution of such food-stuffs. "We 
see, therefore, that the most simple method of 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 99 

child rearing is really nothing more than an 
adaptation of the surroundings to the principle 
of progression. 

The care and education of the child are ration- 
al when they are adapted and proportioned to the 
progress permitted by nature, when they ask 
neither too much nor too little, when their 
demands are in accord with the preparation that 
nature has made, and, finally, when they are not 
over-cautious or unduly timid in advancing from 
a stage of development already outgrown to the 
next higher one. On the one hand, attempts at 
walking and speech training should not be under- 
taken, nor solid food be given too early, while on 
the other, it would be a mistake to babble with a 
child after it has acquired the faculty of pro- 
ducing articulate sounds, to withhold solid food 
too long for fear its stomach may be too weak, or 
to restrain it too long from attempting to walk — 
in short, to treat it during its eighth month as 
tho it had not yet passed its fourth. I am in full 
accord with Heller when he says: "That inor- 
dinate love which is bestowed upon many children, 
which guards them from everything disagreeable, 
and enables them to live only for their own 



100 CHILD TRAINING 

gratification, which gives them onlj' rights and 
imposes no obligations, is followed by serious con- 
sequences, restrains progress instead of promoting 
it, and causes us to view with apprehension the 
development of a generation brought up with such 
extreme tenderness and over-consideration. There 
is no doubt such principles, or lack of principles, 
directly cultivate abnormalities in children at the 
instance of the very parents whose apparent con- 
cern is the welfare of their children. In addition 
to fulfilling its actual task of curing abnormally 
predisposed children through cultural influences, 
remedial pedagogy has still another duty to per- 
form, namely, that of nullifying by means of 
commensurate methods the faults of training 
which have already been committed." 

Furthermore, the mental life of the child is 
governed by the principle of evolution. We can 
see how each primitive activity develops a higher 
perfectedness. The various stages of development 
do not stand disjointly side by side. What 
primarily was only play, only the pleasure of 
movement, whether of the organs of locomotion or 
of speech, gradually becomes more and more 
deliberate and powerful. The activity of children 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 101 

soon becomes replete with manifold movements 
expressive of pleasure or pain. A person who 
follows these expressive movements attentively will 
be able with increasing accuracy to distinguish 
differences and shadings. The first attempts at 
walking are awkward, tentative, disproportioned, 
and after a few steps come to an end. Herein, 
also, we observe how increasing practise leads to 
adjustment for distance and direction; we note 
how a function originally simple becomes more 
and more versatile and purposeful. In this 
development we find not only a realization of psy- 
chological but also of physiological operations. 
One function lays the way for another. The 
child learns to walk and thereby helps develop 
the motor centers in the brain. This development 
having progressed to a certain degree, there ensues 
the training and growth of the much more com- 
plicated center for the organs of speech. The 
rough work of path development is completed 
before the finer work of brain adjustment sets in. 
In the earlier periods is accomplished the form- 
ation of the conducting paths of that larger area 
of the brain made up of the smaller territories 
for speech audition and speech movements. Only 



102 CHILD TRAINING 

when the child hears itself, controls its own, 
primarily reflex, vocal movements, does that 
elaboration in the brain take place which leads to 
the detailed development of the centers for speech 
audition and speech movements. During the first 
years demands are made only upon the power of 
cognition, the memory of the child. 

Purposeful and direct movements, whether em- 
ployed for speaking, for walking, for the pre- 
hension of food, for touching things or measuring 
them with the eyes, leave their impress upon the 
mind of the child. These impresses become more 
distinct the more often movements are executed, 
the more often, whether they serve the same or 
similar purposes, they -are inwardly associated. 

Side by side with this memory for movement 
develops the memory for all those perceptions 
which are transmitted by the sensory organs. In- 
numerable pictures are furnished through the 
sense of sight, a multitude of tones and noises 
enters through the organ of hearing. Less 
marked, but of no less significance for the mental 
constitution of the child, are the projections of 
the senses of taste, smell, and touch. Sensory and 
motor memories enter into manifold associations. 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 103 

The uniform development of both, their har- 
monious cooperation, is an important preliminary 
to the subsequent mental development of the 
child, and at the same time constitutes an im- 
portant aim for all pedagogic endeavor during 
the child's earliest years. Once this has been 
accomplished, the attention, which has been oper- 
ative in its relations even during the first year, 
comes to the fore. During the first year the 
attention is restrained, is dependent upon sensory 
impressions; it is directed automatically, so to 
speak, toward those impressions which enter the 
child's perceptional sphere with dominating in- 
tensity. Later it becomes freer and freer. Then 
through the voluntary attention the child bestows 
on the various happenings taking place about it, 
these are placed in a stronger light and acquire 
greater precision and distinctness. Thus the at- 
tention causes the child to recognize similarity or 
dissimilarity, resemblances and differences in its 
perceptions, and thereby a psychic function of 
higher kind, judgment, is developed. With the 
expansion of the power of associating more and 
more complicated impressions, the child finally 
becomes independent of single perceptions and 



104 CHILD TRAINING 

develops a progressively maturing understanding. 
Other relationships, no less important or funda- 
mental, are added to those governed by the simi- 
larity or dissimilarity of sensory perceptions. The 
recognition of causality, of the relationship of 
cause and effect, of premise and sequence, takes 
place when the perceptions are judged by their 
time relationship to one another, and not just 
comparatively. Gradually the child learns to 
adjust its own activity in accordance with this 
relationship. Its activity and passivity soon be- 
come regulated by the operation of a definite law 
— that of action from motive; the generation of 
definite activities for definite purposes comes more 
and more into the foreground of the child's men- 
tal life. The development of the highest psychic 
function, the will, is based upon these premises. 
While the volition is exercising itself in a definite 
direction, bringing forth new and newer motives 
in the mental life of the child, a definite direction 
in its activities also becomes evident. Definite 
principles are acquired and these become molded 
in accordance with the ways and means in which 
the child conceives, assimilates, and utilizes its 
experiences. Upon this basis is developed char- 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 105 

acter and that differentiation of psychic life which 
gives to every Individual a certain stamp, a 
special identity. 

Were there no source other than sensory per- 
ceptions from which it could obtain its ideas, the 
conceptual sphere of the child would be a re- 
stricted one. There is, however, still another 
psychic function which kaleidoscopically connects 
new conceptions gleaned from the elements of 
previously acquired concepts, ' enables the child 
to think in images and leads it into a domain far 
beyond that constituted by actual facts and ex- 
periences. This mental attribute is the imagina- 
tion, and in the earlier years of childhood it is 
extraordinarily vivid. It is astonishing what 
transformations children effect with the perceptual 
and conceptual material at their disposal, how 
they produce new ideas with almost poetic origi- 
nality, lend life to every object, and construct 
fantastic worlds of their own. When it has 
reached this stage of mental development nothing 
can give a child more pleasure than fairy stories. 
I can but agree with Heller when he says, "Only 
a malevolent or distrustful pedagogy could advo- 
cate depriving children of a recital of fairy 



106 CHILD TRAINING 

stories. If the fantasy of children is not supplied 
with proper stimuli in the shape of good fairy- 
stories, it may well happen that their imagery 
will reign unbridled, that their inventions will be 
of no purpose for their future mental develop- 
ment, and may even be injurious." 

I might add that the exaction of some pedagogs 
that children should be told only of things which 
actually have taken place, seems to me to be going 
to extremes. The imagination is present in the 
child, and calls for occupation quite as much as 
in the adult. Surely a good novel furnishes no 
less enjoyment to us because we know it is not 
founded on fact. "What the novel is for the adult 
the fairy story is for the child. Entertainment 
is what the imagination demands and all criticism 
of truth and fact is left to the intellect. An 
awakening, an annulment of the illusions pro- 
duced by fairy tales, comes soon enough of itself 
without our doing anything to bring it about. 

From what has been said we see that the 
memory of the child furnishes the constructive 
material, produced from past sensory perceptions, 
for the varied uses of the intellect and the im- 
agination. As yet, however, we have by no means 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 107 

exhausted our consideration of the psychic func- 
tions of childhood, for a complete analysis should 
include the emotional life of the child. The feel- 
ings of gratification and displeasure which may be 
recognized as already existing in the newly born 
are, so to speak, the sign-posts of a future mental 
development. The child trends toward impres- 
sions which gratify it, and rebels at those which 
are disagreeable. Pleasurable sensations impress 
themselves with special distinctness upon the 
memory. The attention is turned toward con- 
cepts which are pleasurably colored — these, for 
the most part, furnish the motives for all primi- 
tive acts. Frequently by indirect and circuitous 
paths the child's fantasy seeks the same end, the 
attainment of pleasurable feelings, or the repul- 
sion of disagreeable ones. Every sensation, every 
perception, every flow of ideas has its own special 
emotional tone. All feelings fluctuate between the 
two opposites, pleasure and displeasure. Herein 
again is the principle of evolution revealed. The 
emotions become more refined, more and more 
complicated; the more the intellectual development 
of the child progresses, the further are the feel- 
ings removed from a crude sensuality, which is 



108 CHILD TRAINING 

replaced by esthetic emotions — enjoyment of pic- 
tures, vocal and instrumental music, etc. Thus 
we see how the entire psychic mechanism of the 
child is set into action by its emotional life, and 
we understand why psychological interest has 
again become more or less centered upon the 
study, so long neglected by our older school of 
pedagogy and psychologists, of the child's emo- 
tions. 

A special position in the mental life of the 
child is occupied by its social feelings, and these 
constitute a most advantageous point for educa- 
tional attack. Herbert Spencer has emphasized 
the fact that the child naturally is a pronounced 
egotist, and in its emotional life resembles people 
of a primitive race. Were it not for the adapt- 
ability of the child's emotional life to modifica- 
tion and refinement through the influence of 
training, this condition would lead to most de- 
plorable results, and degeneracy would be the rule 
instead of the exception. A child growing up in 
a moral community, under judicious supervision 
and rational influence, necessarily obtains a certain 
social training, a refinement of egotistic attributes 
without which the harmonious co-existence of 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 109 

many people who are dependent upon each other 
would be unthinkable. Under all circumstances, 
and from the earliest possible moment, the child 
must be made to subjugate itself to general 
ethical principles — it must be taught to obey even 
if yet unable to comprehend the value to itself of 
obedience. Example, whether good or bad, pos- 
sesses vast educational influence. Its power, how- 
ever, is dependent upon the imitative impulse of 
the child. Nothing which occurs in the child's 
immediate surroundings passes without leaving its 
mark. Gestures, expressions of emotion, impress 
themselves upon the mind of the child and cling 
to the memory as conceptual records, which be- 
come more distinct with each repetition. Later 
in life, when they have become fixt in the child's 
brain, such emotionally tinged concepts usually 
become the motives for conduct and determine the 
development of character either in a good or in 
a bad direction. Instruction in childhood must be 
considered one of the most important factors in 
the training of mental faculties. Stress must be 
laid not so much on the inculcation of the greatest 
possible quantity of knowledge and skill as upon 
the awakening of that mental spontaneity which 



110 CHILD TRAINING 

enables the child to think independently and, 
later, to so direct its will and actions that they 
will accord with the principles of ethics. The 
cultivation of a moral character, of one which 
will give the child the necessary self-reliance, 
must be the highest aim of pedagogy. The child 
should learn that certain actions are good altho 
they run counter to its own natural wishes, and 
that certain actions are reprehensible even when 
they satisfy its selfish desires. 

The will of the child must be so strengthened 
that it may withstand the seductive call of culp- 
able actions, and, on the other hand, that it may 
do what is good notwithstanding its original in- 
clination to act otherwise. The feelings of pleasure 
and displeasure which accompany the actions of 
the child constitute the basis for the development 
of its conscience, that inner discernment of the 
good or the bad. The child must learn that the 
feelings which it experiences are produced in 
others as well by corresponding actions, and for 
this, if for no other reason, it must do no wrong 
but only good. It is the task of education so to 
fixate these concepts through practise and habit 
that, in a given instance, they will come into 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 111 

effect automatically — as inhibitory concepts for 
reprehensible actions, or as stimulating concepts 
for good actions. 

While at first the child mind inevitably connects 
self-control and freedom with the concepts of 
punishment and reward, at a later stage it must 
be taught to recognize that true moral conduct 
consists in carrying out good actions for their 
own sake, in refraining from reprehensible ones 
because they are such, without consideration of 
reward or punishment. 

In order to show that other influences than 
those of teaching and percept are of momentous 
import in the development of the character of the 
child, Heller points to the contamination and pol- 
lution caused by sensational literature. It is a 
fact that pictorial or verbal records of the vilest 
crimes often do not produce a feeling of abhor- 
rence but unfetter the lowest instincts and pas- 
sions, thus leading to acts which are a menace to 
public welfare. In children of little will power 
the imitative impulse called into action by auto- 
suggestion has an important bearing upon such 
aberrations of character. For this reason no 
warning can be too emphatic against allowing 



112 CHILD TRAINING 

children to read dime novels and yellow journals, 
or to visit movmg-picture shows which inordin- 
ately excite imagination and thus prejudice moral 
development. 

• The statements of Wundt regarding the traits 
which distinguish the capacity for mental culture 
are very interesting. In the new-born, according 
to "Wundt, these traits consist in certain bodily 
movements which outwardly reflect the psychic 
processes that have called them into action. These 
movements already bear the evident character of 
externalized acts of the will. Thus, for instance, 
the alimental instinct brings about bodily move- 
ments which tend to produce an augmentation of 
the pleasurable feeling caused by satiation or an 
abolition of that displeasurable sensation caused 
by hunger. This simple psychic happening, in a 
certain sense, justifies the supposition that a 
consciousness already exists. 

"Wundt calls consciousness an "inner seeing." 
But, as we know, all sight impressions do not 
take place with equal clearness and distinctness, 
the two latter depending upon whether the im- 
pressions reach only the periphery of the visual 
field, the macula lutea, or its center, the fixation 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 113 

point. The closer they approach the fixation 
point, the position of most distinct vision, the 
clearer are the preceptions, and the more they 
are removed from this point the more indistinct 
they become. The same rule applies in the vari- 
ous contents of our consciousness. Only a minimal 
number of the contents are brought to or reach a 
clear perception, figuratively speaking, in the 
fixation point of consciousness, while the greater 
proportion remains obscured. The entrance of a 
concept into the "visual" field of consciousness is 
designated by Wundt as perception, the entrance 
into the fixation point as apperception. The 
latter, by means of the attention, announces itself 
as an inner happening. The state of attention, 
inseparably connected with apperception, is called 
active when the process of apperception is asso- 
ciated with a feeling of self-performance. It is 
called passive, on the other hand, when a psychic 
happening, so to say, forces itself upon us, and 
thus produces in us a feeling of submission. 

Assuming the organs of special sense, the sen- 
sory nerves and the sensory centers, to be intact, 
not only perception but also apperception should 
result under normal conditions. Nevertheless, in 



114 CHILD TRAINING 

many children the contents of consciousness do 
not rise to clearness and distinctness. Such chil- 
dren, for instaace, do not fixate any object, even 
when it enters the visual field with the utmost 
distinctness. In other words, they are wanting in 
apperceptional capacity. The contents of con- 
sciousness remain perceptionally isolated and, 
therefore, can not be brought into those manifold 
relationships which form the basis of all activity 
of the mind. Under these circumstances no ex- 
perience, not even of the most primitive kind, 
takes place, and even the constant recollection of 
an idea does not leave behind it a clear sensory 
picture. It is for this reason that such children, 
altho their sensory apparatus may be normal, 
must be placed on a par psychically with those 
who, through defects of their sensory apparatus, 
are rendered incapable of receiving sensory im- 
pression. 

The mental capacity for development is entirely 
dependent upon the apperceptional power. 
"Whether this is present may be determined best 
in accordance with "Wundt's law of correspondence 
of apperception and fixation. This law shows that 
the visual lines of the normal organ of sight, by 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 115 

means of a surely acting mechanism, become 
focused upon that object toward which the atten- 
tion is directed. If no object, even when its rays 
fall upon the point of clearest vision on the retina 
of the eye, is capable of exciting attention, then 
that determining impulse to fixation which arises 
from the endeavor to obtain a clear picture of the 
object is wanting, and no apperceptional power 
can exist; consequently, also, all those mental pro- 
cesses which we designate as power of recollection, 
formation of concepts and judgment, become im- 
possible. Later on we will recur to this law of 
"Wundt, which is of great importance in the ques- 
tion of the educability of idiots. 

Experimental psychology makes use of peri- 
metry, tests the visual field, in order to establish 
the fatigability of the brain. Every mental exer- 
tion produces a degree of fatigue in the brain 
which finds its expression in a restriction of the 
visual field. Inasmuch as the solving of one and 
the same problem requires mental exertion of 
varied intensity in children of varied endowment, 
fatigue of the brain, with its attendant restriction 
of the visual field, will occur more rapidly in one 
child, more slowly in another. By means of peri- 



116 CHILD TRAINING 

metry, therefore, we can ascertain the degree of 
apperceptional power and of mental capacity for 
development. 

By far the most reliable method for the eval- 
uation of a child's intelligence, however, is the 
series of tests evolved by Binet and Simon. By 
means of these, it has been said by a recent 
writer, the psychologist, after forty minutes' 
examination, can obtain a more enlightening esti- 
mate of a child's intelligence than can be reached 
by most teachers in a year of contact in the 
schoolroom. These intelligence tests consist in 
asking the child a series of carefully chosen 
questions which can be answered by normal chil- 
dren of average intelligence. The questions are 
graded in accordance with the intelligence at 
different ages of normal children. If the answer 
of the child under examination corresponds to the 
standard of intelligence for its own age, then it 
is designated as normal. If, on the other hand, it 
can answer only those questions which correspond 
to the powers of comprehension and to the con- 
ceptual sphere of younger children, then in pro- 
portion to the difference in age between it and 
the class which normally is able to answer those 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 117 

questions, it is classified as retarded, imbecile or 
idiotic. For example, a child twelve years of age 
having only the conceptual powers of a normal 
child of nine would have to be classed as imbecile. 
Of course, neither this nor any other method will 
test a child's intelligence with mathematical 
precision. 

Let us now take up the development of the 
faculty of speech. While it must be admitted 
that speech is not unrestrictedly essential for a 
primitive mental development, it is certain that 
every higher intellectual activity is bound up with 
the existence of vocal ability. Close observation of 
a child learning to talk shows us that the intellect 
can give precision to its indefinite primitive ideas 
and develop itself only by means of the spoken 
word. Between the development of the intellect 
and the development of speech there exists a close 
interaction. The speech impulse becomes active 
only when the child is able clearly to differentiate 
individual objects about it. In the earliest period 
of its life the objects appearing in its field of 
vision flow together into a diffuse whole. At the 
commencement of its speech development the child 
recognizes only single objects. It has as yet no 



118 CHILD TRAININa 

understanding of the manifold occurrences of the 
outer world and, therefore, it can designate by 
means of speech only that which it understands — 
namely, single objects. Two imperfections of 
speech occur, either of which may be present as a 
manifestation of natural development or as a 
symptom of disease; these are stammering and 
agrammatism. The stammering of small children 
consists in the use of certain tones which they are 
unable to form, or in substituting for them other 
tones with which they are familiar. This "physio- 
logical stammering" is due to the fact that the 
child's vocal organs are as yet inapt and not 
capable of bringing forth difficult tone formations, 
and to the fact that the hearing of the child is 
not yet sufficiently skilled to distinguish similar 
sounding tones from one another. Agrammatism 
occurs normally as a lower form of speech develop- 
ment in children two or three years of age; until 
they have acquired the power of using connected 
sentences they use single words instead of sen- 
tences, or bring together the single words with 
which they are familiar without any intermediary 
link. With an increased speech comprehension the 
endeavor to express ideas in varying relations 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 119 

becomes manifest, and for this reason the speech 
at the end of the third year gives evidence of more 
fluency. At this stage of development children are 
able to make themselves sufficiently understood but 
do not unite their words with grammatical 
accuracy. In feeble-minded children stammering 
and agrammatism, therefore, represent nothing 
more than a halt at this stage of development. 
In the normal child development continues ; it con- 
stantly gains new ideas of the quantitive and 
qualitive conditions of things, of their relationships 
to space and time ; it searches for a verbal expres- 
sion of these distinctions and finds it in the speech 
which the people of its surroundings employ. As 
a result of this imitative impulse, the child uses 
the speech of adults without at first understanding 
the significance of the words it employs. Little by 
little the child, learning through experience that 
these words have a direct relationship to certain 
happenings in the outer world, is stimulated to 
reflection. 

In this sense speech is actually a spur to logical 
thought. It will be understood, therefore, how 
defective development of speech will react detri- 
mentally upon all mental progress. It is a pre- 



120 CHILD TRAINING 

requisite for every higher mental development that 
the processes of thought mechanize themselves 
equably; the further the mental development pro- 
gresses, the less mental energy is required for an 
estimate of the exterior conditions. The means to 
this end is furnished by the fact that speech holds 
ready for use certain verbal expressions which are 
employed without each time necessitating the 
activation of the corresponding logical processes. 
Therefore speech is the most important expedient 
for the perfection of thought. The child that is 
incapable of imitating the speech of mentally 
developed persons lacks the stimulus necessary for 
the development of its intellectual powers, and 
must remain mentally backward. 

In the main we can differentiate three forms of 
speech expressions — verbal, written and gestural. 
The last must be designated as the most primitive 
form of speech ; it is not adapted for the expression 
of a higher logical thought. In verbal speech two 
processes must be considered — firstly, speech under- 
standing, which in the child is limited to a very 
small circle of ideas; secondly, spontaneous speech, 
which the child attains by means of mechanical 
vocal imitation. In the beginning the child cer- 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 121 

tainly does not differentiate between vocal sounds 
and other sounds or noises. At first it imitates 
indiscriminately everything which reaches its ears 
repeatedly. Speech sounds become differentiated 
from other sounds only when the development of 
apperceptional power has reached a certain stage. 

The perceptual center for the expression of 
vocal sounds is called the sensory speech center. 
The child's tendency to imitate not only speech 
sounds but also various other sounds and noises 
must be looked upon as a manifestation of an 
innate impulse to react in a motor way, so far as 
this is possible, to every sense impression. Since 
the motor excitations which result from a reception 
of the speech sounds recur with every fresh sen- 
sory impression, there is formed a motor center for 
speech in addition to the already existing sensory 
one. At first the motor center is dependent upon 
the sensory one, inasmuch as a stimulus must 
always be sent from the sensory center to the motor 
one in order to bring about those speech movements 
which find their expression in the spoken word. 
"With increasing practise, however, the motor cen- 
ter in the normal child becomes more and more 
independent of the sensory center. As early as in the 



122 CHILD TRAINING 

second year of life the mental development of the 
child has reached a stage where speech expression 
is no longer exclusively dependent upon external 
influences, but reflects an endeavor to bring the 
ideas which the child has into connection with each 
other. In this manner the child makes use of speech 
as an expression of its thoughts. The speech move- 
ments are no longer incited through the mechanical 
imitative impulse but through the impulse of the 
will. Those involuntary excitations of the motor 
speech center by the sensory speech center which 
correspond to a primitive development of con- 
sciousness, then constitute exceptional occurrences. 
Very justly Heller insists that it is contrary to 
the spirit of pedagogy to impart to pupils knowl- 
edge which transcends the bounds of their powers 
of understanding. Naturally every teacher would 
show by tangible results that he has been able to 
impart a certain sum of knowledge to his pupils. 
I have repeatedly pointed out that many psy- 
chically defective children possess a remarkably 
good memory. This peculiarity is not without 
decided danger to the teacher. Such pupils may 
memorize a certain quantity of isolated things 
which they have heard or read. They are, how- 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 123 

ever, unable to connect them assoeiatively and to 
assimilate them mentally. Even questions dex- 
terously asked may fail to disclose this incapability, 
and consequently the impression may be thus 
aroused that the children really have some defin- 
ite knowledge. The teacher must not allow him- 
self to be tempted to try and impress the observer, 
unfamiliar with psychically defective children with 
a lot of instructional matter which has been con- 
veyed to them without plan or system, and which 
has been absorbed by a pure feat of memory. 
Of course, in such cases, the teacher must not be con- 
sidered wilfully deceptive, for he himself may have 
been misled by a child that has concealed its nar- 
row mental horizon through parrotlike repetition 
of mechanically acquired phrases. 

The want of independent thought must be uncov- 
ered by means of intelligence tests periodically 
instituted. Hence it is of great importance that 
every pedagog become intimately conversant with 
the Binet-Simon test already mentioned. Accord- 
ing to Goddard, the failures which have been noted 
by some authors and which have led to an erro- 
neous classification of the children subjected to 
this test are to be ascribed, in great part, to an 



]24 CHILD TRAINING 

incorrect manner of questioning. If, for 
instance, lines of different lengths or figures of 
different sizes are shown to the pupil, the teacher 
must not ask: "Which is the shorter line, the 
larger figure, ' ' etc. Such questions call the pupil 's 
attention to the fact that the lines are of different 
length, the figures of different size, which otherwise 
it might not have noted. The question should be, 
"What do you see here?" and the child's own 
impulse of investigation and its own apperceptional 
power should lead it to discover what we desire it to 
find. Or if, for instance, the examiner shows the 
child a reproduction of Millet's "Angelus" — a 
picture in which Breton peasants, at the sound of 
the evening bells, interrupt their field work, fold 
their hands, and bend their heads in prayer — it 
would be entirely wrong to ask, "What are the 
persons in this picture doing. ' ' Instead the teacher 
should ask, "What do you see here?" One pupil, 
perhaps, will merely see a mixture of colors, with- 
out obtaining any clear conception of what they 
mean; another may see the cornfield and the agri- 
cultural implements, but not the people; still an- 
other may see the people without understanding 
why they have their hands folded. If at the start 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 125 

we were to ask, "What are the persons upon this 
picture doing?" every child being tested would 
immediately direct its attention to the human 
figures, which otherwise might have gone un- 
observed, and will see that the hands are folded, 
an action which also might have escaped the pupil 's 
notice. Through such misjudgment in questioning 
it might happen that the intelligence of the child, 
and conjointly its Binet-age, would be estimated 
to be higher than it would have been had the ques- 
tions been correctly put. In order to avoid errors 
of this kind and to classify the pupils according 
to their actual intelligence, it is necessary, there- 
fore, to word the questions so that nothing may be 
suggested to the children which otherwise would 
have escaped their attention. Hence it is advisable 
for the teacher to study the Binet-method with 
care and attention, but not to adhere slavishly to 
the questions that Binet himself has selected. 

Much as I value the Binet-test, provided the 
teacher understands how to formulate the questions 
properly, I would lay stress upon the importance 
of other psychic methods of examination, for in 
psychically defective children the question pre- 
sented is not only of disorders of intelligence but 



126 CHILD TRAINING 

as a rule of a pathological alteration of the entire 
mentality. Frequently psychopathieally inferior 
children will be found more intelligent than other 
children of their own age, and therefore they are 
classed in a higher intellectual grade than that 
which accords with the normal Binet-age. I have 
observed many such instances, and each time the 
question has arisen, What is to be done with these 
abnormal children? Notwithstanding their intel- 
lectual qualities, which frequently are even above 
the average, they do not belong in the public schools 
and still less in the auxiliary classes or schools for 
deficient children. Usually they are inordinately 
egoistic, mendacious, revengeful, or afflicted with 
criminal instincts which can be controlled only by 
means of proper treatment in institutions especi- 
ally equipped for this purpose. 

From what we have said before it is evident the 
-Binet-test enables us to ascertain whether a child 
possesses the power of comprehension which cor- 
responds to its actual age, whether it has pro- 
gressed further than its normal companions of the 
same age, or whether it has remained behind them 
intellectually. Of itself, however, the Binet-test is 
not sufficient to enable us to form a positive opinion 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 127 

regarding the entire mental life of the child. The 
essential differentiating marks for psychically 
deficient children, as compared with normal chil- 
dren, are the lessened power of resistance, the 
more rapid fatigability, and the greater exhaustion 
of the brain. The failings are also present in 
highly intelligent psychopathic inferior children, 
and it is by them that such children may be un- 
mistakably recognized even when they show no 
signs of abnormality in their psychic comportment. 
Intelligence tests must, therefore, always be supple- 
mented by fatigue measurements; even when, in 
accordance with the Binet-test, two children of the 
same age answer the same questions with equal 
accuracy, the time they have required to formulate 
their replies must be considered in order to classify 
them properly. The child that answers the more 
promptly thereby shows it is less fatigable and 
must be assumed to possess a higher degree of 
intelligence. In the beginning, perhaps, the psycho- 
pathically tainted child answers the more promptly, 
but when the test is protracted it soon shows it is 
tiring and permits the normal, less fatigable child 
to forge ahead. De Sanctis lays great stress upon 
the importance of carrying out the intelligence 



128 CHILD TRAINING 

tests with sufficient comprehensiveness and for a 
sufficiently long time to ascertain to what degree 
the tested child tires. Assuming the demands made 
upon all children to have been the same, those 
will receive the highest evaluation of intelligence 
who, at the end of the test, are still the least 
fatigued mentally. While such tests enable us only 
to estimate the degree of fatigue, more definite con- 
clusions can be arrived at through graphic measure- 
ments obtained by the use of perimetry, supple- 
mented by the ascertainment of the reaction time. 
These investigations, however, require much time, 
and call for technical aids which are not always 
at hand. 

A very simple expedient, on the other hand, is 
the esthesiometric test, which consists in placing 
an esthesiometer — an instrument similar to an or- 
dinary drawing compass — with its points separated 
from each other upon any part of the surface of 
the body, and then bringing more closely together 
or still farther separating the two branches of the 
instrument until the points 'can still just be dis- 
tinguished as two separate tactile impressions. 
Upon the ends of the finger of a normal person the 
two points of the instrument can be recognized as 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 129 

two pricks or pressure-sensations when separated 
two millimeters from each other. Upon the back 
of the hand they can be so recognized when thirty- 
one millimeters apart, and upon the skin of the 
upper arm they are not so perceived until the 
distance between the points has reached sixty-one 
millimeters. The greater the fatigue of the brain 
the further must the points of the esthesiometer 
be separated in order that they may be perceived 
as two separate sensations. Assuming children of 
the same age to have undergone the same degree 
of exertion, one of them may perceive the two 
points upon the end of the finger at a distance of 
three millimeters from each other as two separate 
excitations, while in another the two points will 
produce but a single sensation when three milli- 
meters apart, and may have to be separated to 
four millimeters or more before the sensation of 
two stimuli is produced. The latter child, there- 
fore, as is shown by its reduced apperceptional 
capability, has been far more fatigued by the 
exertion than the other child. The fact that two 
children in a thoroughly rested state recognize the 
two points, applied to the ends of the fingers at 
a spread of two millimeters, as two distinct tactile 



130 CHILD TRAINING 

impressions, by no means proves that both have 
the same normal appereeptional capability. The 
significant and decisive factor must always be the 
repetition of the test after a certain amount of 
work has been accomplished by them, for a measure 
by which the pathological can be estimated can 
be obtained only through a comparison with the 
normal. 

Hence esthesiometry, employed both before and 
after instruction, may give us a wealth of informa- 
tion. Above all, it will enable us to recognize 
whether the children have normal skin sensations. 
It is possible that, even in a rested state, all chil- 
dren may not perceive the two points of the in- 
strument at a spread of only two millimeters as 
two different stimuli. For some of them, the points 
might have to be still further separated in order 
to be so perceived. This, then, would indicate an 
abnormal state. Moreover, it would be distinct 
evidence of a pathological condition were a child 
unable even to designate the place upon the skin to 
which the points of the instrument had been ap- 
plied. 

The sensation of two stimuli produced by the 
two points of the esthesiometer when two milli- 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 131 

meters apart, probably becomes altered in all chil- 
dren by the end of an instruction period into a 
perception of a single excitation. This is entirely 
normal. Only when the two points of the instru- 
ment — which, ordinarily, after a certain amount of 
exertion are appreciated as such when three milli- 
meters apart — must be separated six millimeters or 
more in order to be so perceived, can there be any 
question of pathological brain fatigue. Thus the 
teacher is able not only to estimate the degree of 
fatigue in the various children, but by means of 
esthesiometry, combined with other psychic 
methods of examination, to obtain a positive meas- 
ure of each one's efficiency. By means of fatigue 
measurements, he can at all times determine 
whether the instruction is adapted to the child's 
capabilities or whether too great demands are 
being made. This is of extraordinary importance. 
Ambitious teachers would like to parade the pro- 
gress which their children are making but are 
likely to overlook the fact that the apparent pro- 
gress at the expense of overtaxation is in reality 
retrogression. The real significance of "overbur- 
dening" becomes evident only through fatigue 
measurements. Overburdening is not necessarily a 



132 CHILD TRAINING. 

transgression of average requirements. Children 
may be overburdened without harmful effect when 
less is required of them than is usually expected 
of normal children. Overburdening signifies an 
excess only in its relation to the child's power of 
comprehension, and this may be large or it may 
be small. The psychic tests enable us constantly 
to know whether a child is overburdened or not. 
Especially is this proved by the results of fatigue 
measurements. "When these show the child to be 
overtaxed, then either the method of instruction is 
wrong or demands are being made upon the child 
which far transcend its capabilities. In that case 
the plan of instruction must be altered, the amount 
of knowledge conveyed must be restricted. Human 
society is far better served when children learn 
less but have thorough knowledge of what they 
have been taught, than when they enter upon the 
struggle for existence equipped with a mass of 
undigested facts and a body weakened by overtax- 
ation. 

We have now become acquainted with two 
methods which enable us to apply the principle of 
individualization to training and instruction in 
children. The Binet-test makes it possible for us 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 133 

to classify the children correctly according to their ^ 
various degrees of intelligence. By means of it we 
learn where to start with the child and what may 
be required of it; but by means of the fatigue 
measurements, we are constantly able to deter- 
mine, in addition, whether the method of instruc- 
tion is one adapted to the child's capacity. When 
the fatigability of the brain decreases, we may be 
sure the particular method of instruction can 
facilitate the child's acquisition of knowledge; but 
when the fatigability of the brain increases, the 
teacher at once has a warning that there must be 
some error in his method. This error, it will 
always be found, is an overestimation of the child's 
individual conceptual capacity, 

Mme. Montessori has shown us that we can in- 
dividualize without employing a special teacher for 
every pupil. Likewise Seguin — whose premise in 
training children was ''So many children, so many 
anomalies" — was a master in the art of individual- 
ization, despite the fact that experimental psy- 
chology at his time was still in its infancy. "We 
must merely guard against the error of dividing 
the human race into normal and abnormal indi- 
viduals. As a matter of fact, there are just as 



134 CHILD TRAINING 

many classes and subdivisions as there are human 
beings. Differentiation is the characteristic of 
higher development. In the lower stage of develop- 
ment, the individual specimens of a plant or the 
individual animals of a species can be differen- 
tiated only with difficulty. In the lower races, the 
same holds true for human beings; but the more 
highly an organism is developed, the more do the 
single specimens acquire a special impress. But 
this differentiation, which becomes fixt through 
heredity, involves not only healthy but also diseased 
characteristics ; and because that which is diseased 
or that which is healthy gradually assumes a fixity 
of character, no sharp line of demarcation can be 
drawn between the normal and the pathological, 
and we must look upon the numerous transitional 
forms, from the evidently healthy to the pro- 
nouncedly diseased, as a mixture of both, in which 
either the healthy or the diseased predominates. 
It is in this sense, as I have previously stated, that 
for the physician and educator there can not be 
two classes of human beings, but only single human 
beings, each of whom must be treated in accord- 
ance with his own individuality. 
In considering Mendel's law, we asked whether 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 135 

it might be possible, by means of inheritance, to 
maintain and increase desirable properties, and, 
conversely, to cause undesirable properties gradu- 
ally to disappear. I mentioned that it is not 
certain whether the Mendelian law applies to 
human beings the same as it does to plants and 
animals. I said, particularly, that it is uncertain 
whether the psychic organs of descendants can 
be favorably influenced by predetermined selec- 
tion of their parents. Certain facts furnish us 
with reliable data in this regard. These pertain 
to the so-called constitutional anomalies, such as 
tuberculosis, syphilis, neurasthenia, etc. It is 
quite certain that parents who beget children 
when suffering from the chronic forms of those 
diseases, while not transmitting the disease itself, 
certainly do transmit a predisposition to such 
disease to their descendants. These children, con- 
sequently, are hereditarily tainted and bring with 
them into the world more or less defective con- 
stitutions through which their struggle for exist- 
ence is rendered more difficult. At the beginning, 
perhaps, the defect involves only the bodily func- 
tions, but just as a workman, even when very 
adept, can not produce good results with poor 



136 CHILD TRAINING 

implements, so the mentality becomes less effective 
when its tool, the physical constitution, is poorly 
conditioned. Thus we can understand how physic- 
ally tainted children may also be psychically 
defective, even tho at the time of conception both 
parents were in good mental health. 

How hereditary transmission of constitutional 
anomalies may, to a certain extent, be restricted, 
or perhaps be entirely eliminated in time, is ex- 
plained in another part of this book. Here I 
would again emphasize my opinion that much 
better success may be obtained through instruc- 
tion and enlightenment than by means of rigorous 
laws enforceable only with difficulty. Enlighten- 
ment of the people regarding tuberculosis and 
other constitutional anomalies, and particularly 
regarding alcoholism as a factor in the production 
of hereditary taint, can meet with no decided 
obstacles. 

It is entirely different, however, when we come 
to the question of sexual dissipation. Altho every 
educated person knows that sexual excesses, to- 
gether with infections resulting therefrom, are 
fraught with pernicious consequences for future 
generations, there is a general disinclination to 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 137 

discuss such subjects in public. It is considered 
indecent for cultivated people to talk about 
syphilis or the pollution of the body which it 
causes, or, in fact, even to refer to the question 
of impregnation and heredity. In such matters 
we act precisely like the ostrich, which, when 
danger approaches, hides its head in a bush or 
in the sand, and then because it no longer sees 
the enemy believes him to be no longer present. 
"We passively permit the danger to advance, allow 
the poison to contaminate the body of the people 
and remain silent as tho the menace did not exist. 
But it is of no avail to act as tho we saw no peril ; 
nor does it help in any way to say that every 
person must bear the consequences of his own acts. 
Above all, we should not forget that many persons 
who have become diseased as a result of sexual 
excesses are the victims of seduction or of their 
own ignorance. Then we, too, should always bear 
in mind that not only the diseased individuals 
but their descendants as well are seriously men- 
aced. Contagious sexual diseases could not spread 
any more widely than any other infectious 
disease, if all persons were aware of the danger 
to which, through sexual excesses, they expose not 



138 CHILD TRAINING 

only themselves but all with whom they come in 
contact. 

Human society, therefore, has the greatest in- 
terest in combatting the source of so much evil 
for so many individuals. This source is ignor- 
ance of sexual facts. Tho many persons oppose 
all suggestions of sexual education for children, 
it is my conviction that young people must be 
enlightened concerning the physiological task ful- 
filled by the procreative act, they must be taught 
how, with equal certainty, there are transmitted 
through it not only normal but also pathological 
qualities; and how deleterious upon the organism 
may be the misuse of the sexual impulse, even 
when not followed by any infection. Most par- 
ents probably do not doubt in the least that their 
adolescent children would be benefited by re- 
ceiving this instruction and would thereby be far 
better guarded against unscrupulous seduction. 
Nevertheless, the majority of parents are not cap- 
able of giving this instruction Quite naturally it 
is unpleasant for them to discuss with their 
children a subject so delicate in nature, but what 
is more important, they usually lack the peda- 
gogic skill necessary to explain these matters in 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 139 

connection with natural processes of a similar 
kind as they occur in plants and animals. Under 
no circumstances should such instruction be de- 
ferred until the child has received its first notions 
on the subject from obscene literature, or until 
its imagery has been perverted through seductive 
pictures painted for it by unscrupulous profli- 
gates. Nothing can better check an overflowing 
fantasy than the appropriate instruction of a 
qualified pedagog. He knows his pupils, knows 
to what extent he may depend upon their powers 
of understanding, and will, without difficulty, be 
able to present his sexual instructions in a proper 
garb, without revealing to the children either too 
much or too little. Such instruction might be 
given in a series of talks, which the teacher could 
formulate along the lines of the following subject 
matter : 

All organism (plants and animals) have a 
limited duration of life, but, without exception, 
all possess the power of producing organisms 
similar to themselves, of constantly populating the 
earth with their own kind, and therefore, in a 
way, of continuing life in their descendants. We 
see cells or groups of cells becoming detached 



140 CHILD TRAINING 

from the individual organisms, and, where the 
external conditions are favorable, gradually de- 
veloping into independent beings of the same 
kind. This power of propagation possest by an 
organism is confined to a certain stage of its 
existence, which is called the stage of maturity, 
and varies greatly in the various species. Some 
of these in a few days or weeks of their existence 
produce an enormous number of descendants, but 
in consequence of lack of nourishment most of the 
latter can not survive A tapeworm in the course 
of a year produces about one million young, the 
oyster just as many; the offspring of a plant louse 
in a few weeks aggregate several thousand mil- 
lion, those of a vorticella after four days total one 
hundred and forty million, and those of bacteria, 
when the culture soil is favorable, reach even 
larger numbers. On the other hand, there are 
species that arrive at the age of maturity com- 
paratively late and bring but a few young into 
the world. For instance, the elephant in three to 
four years produces only a single offspring. 
Human beings reach the period of maturity at 
about the sixteenth year of life, and the number 
of offspring for one couple may be as high as 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 141 

twenty or twenty-five, but as a rule does not 
exceed five or six. 

All children must have observed that a kitten 
can be produced only from cats, a chicken only 
from chickens, a calf only from cattle, etc. Simi- 
larly, wheat can grow only where wheat has been 
sown, oats where oats have been sown, etc. There 
is no organism that can originate of itself, but each 
must spring from organisms of its own kind. All 
organisms are direct descendants of primal cells. 
"Whence these came we do not know, and all hy- 
potheses offered to explain the origin of the first 
living beings as due to anything other than par- 
ental procreation have been failures. 

The production of new independent individuals 
takes place either sexually or asexually. Asexual 
reproduction is a process comparatively easy 
to understand. In its simplest form it consists 
in self-division or cleavage. Self-division occurs 
mainly in the lower orders of animals in which 
material for the new being, with all of its prop- 
erties, is already present in the maternal body, 
and the latter, by means of cleavage into two or 
more parts, forms one or more new organisms. 

Bud or spore formation is very common in the 



142 CHILD TRAINING 

animal and vegetable kingdom, the more striking 
examples occurring in corals, water medusae and 
in some worms. It differs from the process of 
self -division in that the maternal organism remains 
intact. 

"While, therefore, in asexual propagation there 
is present but a single propagating substance, 
which possesses the power of transforming itself 
directly into a new organism, sexual procreation 
is characterized by the fact that the germ material 
always originates in special formations, the ovaries, 
and requires impregnation by means gi the seed 
before it can develop. In other words, the germ 
or egg cell must coalesce with the seed cell. Since 
the opportunity for such coalescence is frequently 
wanting the number of offspring produced through 
sexual propagation is far less than in asexual 
propagation. 

In sexual propagation, which forms the rule in 
higher plants and animals, and which, in human 
beings, is the only method of propagation, we must 
again differentiate two forms. Either the organ 
for the formation of the ovum and that for the 
formation of the seed are to be found together in 
one and the same individual, as is the case in the 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 143 

large majority of plants, the leech, the rain-worm 
and a few other animals, or else the seed cell and 
the egg cell are produced by two different indi- 
viduals, male and female. The higher organisms 
which increase only by means of sexual propaga- 
tion are, therefore, divided into three classes: 

First, the hermaphrodites, which produce seed 
as well as eggs. Secondly, the males which pro- 
duce only the seed. Thirdly, the female which 
produces only the egg. 

The fecundation of the egg by means of the seed 
in the differentiated sexes may occur within the 
female organism by means of copulation or may 
occur outside of the organism, as is the case with 
the spawn of fish. Similarly the development of 
the fecundated germ may take its course within 
as well as outside of the female organism. Develop- 
ment outside of the organism is exemplified in the 
hatching of eggs of birds. In human beings and 
the mammals in general, fecundation and develop- 
ment of the germ always take place within the 
maternal body. After the germ has developed 
sufficiently to be able to continue its life outside 
the maternal organism, which in the human being 
takes about forty weeks, the mature child is dis- 



144 CHILD TRAINING 

charged by means of the act of parturition. During 
fecundation a coalescence — an actual interchange 
of the germ substance furnished by both parents — • 
takes place. Upon this is dependent the inherit- 
ance of parental qualities. 

This last fact with which the sex instruction 
should conclude is of the most extreme importance, 
and the object of all sexual enlightenment, there- 
fore, can only be to call the attention of young 
folk to the responsibility they assume when they 
allow themselves to be controlled unrestrictedly by 
their sexual desires. Through hereditary trans- 
mission the child receives numerous fully developed 
capabilities that have been acquired only with 
difficulty by its members in the course of thousands 
of years. Whatever the child does instinctively, 
without any consciousness of purpose, is the con- 
densation of the experience acquired by all ante- 
cedent generations. Heredity, however, carries to 
the child not only benefits but also decided detri- 
ments. When the sexual admixture of two races 
results in a transmission of the bad qualities of 
both to the offspring, when drunkards, syphilitics, 
degenerates, or the insane bring into the world 
idiotic or otherwise defective progeny, it is nothing 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 145 

else than an expression of the law of heredity. 
Altho it may be true, as Scholz says, that ' ' degen- 
eration and regeneration counterbalance each 
other," still it should not be left to chance to 
determine that in procreation no detrimental germ 
cells shall exert their influence and restrict the 
life utility of the child. The knowledge of the 
regulation of such occurrences certainly constitutes 
a part of prophylactic training. 

I am confident that once we have made a begin- 
ning, instruction regarding the laws of nature 
governing procreation and heredity will lose its 
displeasing impress. The common reluctance to 
explain the processes of propagation to children is 
one of those prejudices which has brought much 
misfortune to the human race. Children should 
know that the sexual instinct is one just as natural 
as the nutritional instinct, and that the satisfac- 
tion of the sexual instinct is no more shameful than 
the satisfaction of the feeling of hunger or thirst. 
In my opinion it is not even necessary to defer 
instruction on this subject until children have 
reached the age of puberty. In fact, I consider it 
much better to begin such lessons before that time. 
The tactful teacher, even when dealing with 



146 CHILD TRAINING 

younger children, will without difficulty find a 
suitable starting-point for his instruction. 

The example we have given of the manner in 
which enlightenment regarding sexual processes 
might be given again emphasizes the fact, so im- 
portant to modern pedagogy, that every person 
in consequence of his inherited disposition and the 
influences which surround him, must be looked 
upon as a special individual. That this fact 
makes every system of classifying abnormal chil- 
dren exceedingly difficult, becomes evident from a 
study of the literature on the subject. Such ex- 
perienced pedagogs as Holmes and Groszman agree 
it is impossible to assign abnormal children to 
distinct, well-defined classes. Scholz very properly 
decries the desire of seeking something patho- 
logical in every case. "A symptom in itself," he 
says, * ' as yet signifies nothing ; only when arrayed 
in its connection with other symptoms does it 
acquire significance." A certain equalization takes 
place because not only the seed for degenerative 
but also that for regenerative qualities is trans- 
mitted from parent to offspring. For this reason 
the most serviceable training is that which gives 
each pupil an education adapted to his individu- 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 147 

ality, in order that lie may waste no time in tasks 
for which he is not fitted, and that, in attempting 
to execute these tasks, the development of his true 
natural disposition may not be neglected. "Nature 
knows only individuals. Every human being is 
a special case, a peculiarity, a thing in itself." 
With these words Scholz makes plain the basis 
from which not only all medical but also all peda- 
gogic considerations must spring. In accordance 
with this standpoint it is incorrect, strictly speak- 
ing, to say that there is one kind of pedagogy for 
normal children and another for pathological chil- 
dren. On the contrary, pedagogy and remedial 
pedagogy, prophylactic and therapeutic training, 
are inseparably interconnected. 

We must become as conversant with this fun- 
damental idea as we are with the letters of the 
alphabet. How extraordinarily difficult it often is 
to judge the mental state of a person, whether 
adult or juvenile, is well shown in a striking 
example given by Scholz, who says: 

"Place before any one of the many who shrug 
their shoulders in regard to psychiatric science, a 
piece of gray paper and ask him: *Is the paper 
black or white?' He will then answer, 'Neither 



148 CHILD TRAINING 

one nor the other — it is gray.' Thereupon you 
say, 'That is not what I want to know. You must 
answer directly — is it black or white, and nothing 
else.' " 

In a similar manner the psychiatrist, when called 
as an expert in court, is supposed to answer whether 
an accused person is sane or insane — in other 
words, whether he is responsible or irresponsible. 
Upon his testimony depends the honor, the liberty, 
the future and the good name of an individual. 
The law recognizes only mental health and mental 
disease, and does not admit the existence of any 
transitions or intermediary grades. But what if 
the accused is neither distinctly sane nor insane? 
The psychiatrist will be unable to make the dis- 
tinction clear to his legal auditors, for the judge 
is required to say, "From the viewpoint of the law 
that does not concern me; all I want to know is 
whether the accused is sane or insane." 

Pedagogy faces exactly the same difficulty as 
soon as it attempts to classify the children in 
accordance with a specified, definite diagram. And 
what could a teacher say were he required to 
separate his pupils into two groups, the clever and 
the stupid. He could without difficulty array on 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 149 

one side those who are actually clever and on the 
other those who are really stupid, but as to those 
who mentally occupy an intermediate position 
he would face an inextricable dilemma. It is well 
known that many men who afterward became 
great were looked upon when in school as un- 
talented, some of them even as actual dullards. 
Then, too, we frequently find that children who 
have warranted the greatest expectations, who have 
been considered models of perfection in school, 
have proved sore disappointments in later life. 
The same experience) is lencounterfed so far as 
certain psychic deficiencies are concerned. Any 
one of these, in certain persons, may remain latent 
throughout life, or, at most, may manifest itself 
only under exceptional circumstances, while in 
other individuals the same psychic defect may 
develop into undisguised mental disorder. It has 
frequently been shown that a feeble-minded child, 
amid orderly surroundings, in which it found 
proper care and was kept occupied in a manner 
befitting its mental state, has remained apparently 
normal throughout its life; had the same child 
grown up amid neglectful surroundings, been 
treated brutally and overburdened with work, it 



150 CHILD TRAINING 

would gradually have degenerated into a state of 
complete idiocy, or, in consequence of its anti- 
social nature, it would have been, led to the com- 
mission of deeds of violence. 

Psychic defects may be compared to bacteria. 
We are constantly in danger of being infected by 
them. As a matter of fact, however, infection 
takes place only where the bacilli find a propitious 
culture medium. In that circumstance the better 
the soil, the more quickly and more numerously 
do they proliferate. To deprive psychic defects of 
their culture medium, to keep them within bounds 
so that they can not gain' an ascendancy — these 
are among the chief tasks of prophylactic training. 
The law of mechanism is applicable to all psycho- 
physical activities. The older we become the more 
do our concepts, emotion and voluntary action 
acquire a character of habitude. Pedagogically, 
this is a very important fact. For if our virtues, 
as well as our faults, through frequent repetition 
gradually become second nature to us, then peda- 
gogy need only so instil good habits by means of 
assiduous practise that they will be inspired auto- 
matically, and finally the individual will be unable 
to do otherwise than submit to them. The better 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 151 

this automatism functionates, the more unfavor- 
able will be the soil for the culture of psychic 
defects, disordered concepts, and perverted activi- 
ties of the emotion and the will. While unfavor- 
able external conditions of life can not become the 
direct productive cause of mental abnormalities, 
it is nevertheless true that erroneous training can 
accentuate evil traits which already exist. Where 
the intellect is naturally feeble, it will wither 
entirely if left unexercised or if inconsiderately 
abused by enforced activity for which the brain is 
unfitted. Where the will is naturally weak, where 
there exists an unbridled imagery and dominating 
impulsiveness, the child, unless it receives ex- 
traneous aid, will inevitably become the victim of 
its own passions. Training can not give the child 
any properties it has not received from nature. 
Nor can it change the basic tendency of its con- 
genital psychic qualifications. But it can prevent 
an overgrowth of noxious germs, and it can make 
an individual more capable, more serviceable than 
he would become if left, unaided, to himself and 
to the struggle for existence, which is doubly 
exacting for a hereditarily tainted brain. 



PART THIRD 

THE PSYCHIC ABNOEMALITIES 
OF CHILDHOOD 

A. Organic Defects 

The psycnic abnormalities of childhood that are 

I of importance from the standpoint of remedial 

pedagogics may be classified under two main heads 

— those dependent upon bodily defects and the 

pure neuroses. 

The mental defects dependent upon bodily 
abnormalities most frequently met with are those 
\ states of apparent psychic weakness which are 
caused by adenoid vegetations in the naso-pharynx 
and which we have already mentioned. Every one 
who has had an opportunity to observe children 
afHicted with such vegetations must have noted 
their lax, stupid expression, their peculiar dull 
countenances and, more especially, their defective 
speech. The sounds with nasal resonance, especi- 
ally m, n, ng, r, 1 and w, are markedly altered in 
consequence of a suppression of the resonance, 
and gradually this alteration implicates all other 
associated sounds, thus articulation in general loses 

152 



ORGANIC DEFECTS 153 

its modulations and becomes transformed into the 
so-called **dead" speech. Through occlusion of 
the openings of the eustachian tubes in the naso- 
pharynx, caused by the adenoid vegetations, the 
hearing also is made imperfect, and this naturally 
interferes with the conceptual capacity, in so far 
at least as it is dependent upon the receptivity for 
auditory impressions. Since the mouth-breathing 
to which children with adenoids are obliged to 
resort is much more superficial than nose-breathing, 
we can easily understand the defective develop- 
ment of the thorax in these unfortunates, their 
lowered powers of resistance to changes of tem- 
perature, their headaches, restless sleep and facial 
pallor. All these conditions are due to obstruction 
of their nasal respiration. 

In the psychic domain, obstruction of the res- 
piration manifests itself by a dreamy, distracted 
manner, by an inability to concentrate the atten- 
tion on any object for any length of time, and by 
an inordinate susceptibility of the brain to fatigue, 
a condition which has technically been designated 
as "aprosexia." Of course, an obstruction to 
nasal respiration due to other causes, such as 
polypi, chronic catarrh, exostoses, etc., may also be 



154 CHILD TRAINING 

the reason for a mental condition of that kind, 
and in that ease the feeble-mindedness is not actual 
but merely apparent. It was this latter state to 
which Guye first applied the tenn "aprosexia." 
According to him the condition is encountered in 
the following forms : 1. As a difficulty in the acqui- 
sition or assimilation of new ideas, especially when 
these are of abstract kind. 2, As a difficulty in 
retaining new concepts (weakness of memory). 3. 
As a difficulty in concentrating the attention upon 
a certain object for any length of time (aprosexia 
in its restricted sense). 

In a lecture before the Society of German 
Naturalists and Physicians in 1887, Guye exprest 
himself as follows: "I would like to say a few 
words regarding the relationship of aprosexia of 
nasal origin and that aprosexia which bespeaks our 
interest because it is a symptom of overstrain in 
school. When, in consequence of too much study, 
a pupil is no longer able to learn, he suffers from 
aprosexia. But in many cases the predisposition 
to this state is furnished by nasal disease, and I 
believe it should be imprest upon the teachers that 
in all such cases they should pay attention to the 
condition of the nose and particularly to the form 



ORGANIC DEFECTS 155 

of breathing. My experience leads me not to doubt 
for a moment that in many instances the back- 
ward pupil will be found to breathe, either night 
and day, or only at night, with open mouth. In 
all such cases the aprosexia is curable by nasal 
treatment. What is so of aprosexia also applies 
to the headache with which it is closely allied, and 
which also plays a great role in children as a result 
of overburdening in school." 

More or less obstruction to nasal breathing was 
found by "William Hill in almost all the mentally 
retarded children of the Earlswood asylum. In 
one-third of the pupils of the department for 
feeble-minded children in Koenigsberg, Kafemann 
found a marked enlargement of the pharyngeal 
tonsil. Naso-pharyngeal vegetations were shown 
by Schmid-Monard to be present in one-fifth of the 
pupils of the auxiliary schools at Halle, and 
Laquer's examinations of sixty-seven pupils of 
auxiliary schools in Frankfort on the Main revealed 
the existence of marked adenoid vegetations in 
twelve. Of the retarded school children examined 
in Berlin by Kassel 39.5 per cent, had malforma- 
tions of the same kind, and the examination of 
three hundred and six feeble-minded children by 



156 . CHILD TRAINma 

Briihl and Navratzin revealed in more than 
75 per cent, of them either hypertrophied faucial 
tonsils or a hypertrophied pharyngeal tonsil, or 
both. Similar results have been obtained through 
studies of the relationship existing between nasal 
respiratory obstructions and intellectual weakness 
of children in American schools. 

It should not be supposed, however, that 
aprosexia is always dependent upon an obstruction 
to nasal respiration — on the contrary, it is often 
of purely psychic origin. When this is the case, 
the sparse naso-pharyngeal vegetations often found 
to be present are merely incidental complications. 
It is certain that the relations normally existing 
between the cerebro-spinal fluid and the lymphatics 
of the nasal membranes are often disturbed by the 
presence of adenoid vegetations, and that a removal 
of these vegetations of itself suffices, in many cases, 
to restore a normal equilibrium; and yet, in other 
cases, the removal of such vegetations brings about 
no improvement whatever in the abnormal psychic 
state. Such cases of aprosexia, therefore, must be 
dependent upon other causes. 

"We will now turn our attention to the state 
known as cretinism. This term is applied to an 



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ORGANIC DEFECTS 157 

inhibition of psychic development associated with 
certain physical disorders, both being dependent 
upon a defective exercise of function of the 
thyroid gland or the absence of that function. 
The thyroid gland in some cretins becomes trans- 
formed iato a goiter, frequently of extraordinary 
dimensions, or in a certain number of cases dis- 
appears entirely. The physical symptoms are essen- 
tially retardation in growth of the long bones of 
the body (dwarfism), a large, deformed head with 
broad nose and widely separated eyes, and above 
all the myxoedematous changes of the skin. All 
over, but more particularly on the neck and the 
upper arms, the skin becomes thick, wrinkled and 
flabby as tho too large for the body. The 
mental faculties may become arrested at any stage 
of their development, so that cretins may manifest 
either the most abject idiocy or only a slight degree 
of feeble-mindedness. Their psychic comportment 
is occasionally characterized by marked oscillations, 
wavering between apathy on the one hand and 
states of excitement upon the other. 

Cretinism is pre-eminently an endemic disease 
and is met with in almost every part of the habit- 
able globe. Goiter is fairly common in England 



158 CHILD TRAINING 

but cretinism rare, while in North America the 
occurrence of cretinism is confined almost entirely 
to the valleys of Vermont, Massachusetts and Cali- 
fornia. Cretinism is common in the valleys of the 
Swiss and Austrian Alps, in the valleys of the 
Pyrenees and the Himalayas, and also along the 
shores of the rivers Neckar and Main. For all 
time certain sections of the Alpine country have 
been notorious as goiter regions. There the in- 
habitants gave birth to offspring bearing all the 
marks of cretinism, but later, when they had 
migrated to goiter-free districts, they bore healthy 
children. On the other hand, women who were 
the mothers of only healthy children before gave 
birth to cretins after they had removed to goitrous 
districts. It was evident, therefore, that the causes 
of cretinism and of goiter had to be sought in local 
conditions. 

Foddere of Strassburg, who in 1772 published 
the first thorough and comprehensive work on 
cretinism, sought to prove this disease was caused 
by a saturation with moisture of the stagnant air 
of the valleys. In a book on cretinic degeneration, 
published in 1817, Iphofen attributes the causation 
of this disease directly to a lack of vitality of the 



ORGANIC DEFECTS 159 

affected individual, indirectly to an absence of 
electricity in the air. Altho these observers, as 
well as many others of their times, were in error 
in attributing goiter to the effect of the surround- 
ing atmosphere, nevertheless it was their work 
that brought about the removal of the inhabitants 
of goiter-afflicted areas to more healthy localities 
as a means of cure. An enumeration of the cretins 
living in the Canton Wallis, then the French 
departement du Simplon, undertaken by order of 
Napoleon I., showed that approximately three 
thousand dwelt there. His object had been to 
effect a deplacement of the entire population of 
the most afflicted villages, but the first foundation, 
that of Eschersdorf, demonstrated that the people 
themselves were opposed to the enforcement of 
any change in their home surroundings for sanitary 
reasons. The magnitude of the undertaking, how- 
ever, was in itself sufficient cause for failure. 
Guggenbiihl, as has already been mentioned, hoped 
to attain definite curative results mainly by means 
of a colonization of the cretins in the higher 
regions of the Alps. His non-success must be at- 
tributed chiefly to his failure to recognize the actual 
exciting cause of cretinism — that is, the disordered 



160 CHILD TRAINING 

thyroid function — and to the fact that under that 
misapprehension he naturally regarded the im- 
provement that did take place in certain cases 
as being due directly to the influence of a change 
in locality, whereas such improvement only became 
possible because the activity of the thyroid gland 
in the particular cases had not yet ceased entirely, 
and, in the goiter-free regions, the gland was able 
to regain part or all of the function it had lost. 

Originally, therefore, goiter and cretinism were 
looked upon as concurrent symptoms of one dis- 
ease, but no consideration was given to their causal 
relationship and it was not known whether the 
goiter was the cause of the cretinism or the latter 
the cause of goiter. 

A clear understanding was attained only after 
it became known that operative removal of the 
thyroid gland, whenever it became necessary, was 
regularly followed by cretinism. Such sporadic 
cretinism in mentally perfectly healthy persons 
living in goiter-free localities could not be attri- 
buted to pollution of the air or other local per- 
nicious influences. Furthermore it was ascertained 
that the thyroid gland, whose function until that 
time had remained unknown, neutralized the 




Courtesy of Dr. W. E. Fernald. 

Sporadic Cretinism. 

Age, 10 years and 11 months. Height, 2 feet 10^2 inches. 

Weight, 37 pounds. 
Massachusetts School for Feeble-minded. 



ORGANIC DEFECTS 161 

toxicity of certain products of metabolism by means 
of the secretion which it produced, and that, there- 
fore, cretinism was nothing else than a metabolic 
toxaemia dependent upon loss of this important 
function. If, then, the thyroid gland were en- 
tirely absent, or if its function had been sus- 
pended by goiter, cancerous degeneration, etc., 
cretinism would be the necessary result. Conse- 
quently, it is not the goiter, as such, that causes 
cretinism, nor is it the goiter alone. The goiter 
plays the chief role only to the extent that, when 
it has attained a certain size, it becomes the cause 
of the inhibition of the function of the thyroid 
gland. 

Briefly stated, therefore, the difference between 
endemic and sporadic cretinism may be said to 
be that, in the former type, there exists a func- 
tional incompetence due to the goiter, while in 
the other such incompetency is due to different 
causes. 

As may with great probability be assumed from 
the researches of Bireher and others, the goiter 
itself is caused by an organized pathogenic agent 
which finds a favorable developmental medium in 
the geological conditions of the Alpine valleys, 



162 CHILD TRAINING 

especially in the drinking waters, and, as is the 
case with other producers of disease, preferen- 
tially attacks persons specially predisposed to its 
influences. Were this not so, it would be impos- 
sible for us to understand why all persons using 
the same drinking water and living upon the 
same unfavorable soil should not become afflicted 
with goiter and cretinism. 

In so far as sporadic cretinism is concerned, 
it is of interest to follow the reasoning of Kocher, 
the Bernese surgeon. Kocher had found that the 
general condition of patients afflicted with goiter, 
which had not yet totally annulled the function 
of the thyroid gland, became markedly disordered 
soon after a total removal of the goitrous gland. 
"Weakness, pain, and a sensation of heaviness in 
the extremities set in, together with a general 
feeling of cold, and these were followed by a 
decrease in mental alertness, the latter being speci- 
ally noticeable in children at school. The dim- 
inution of mental capacity observed by the teach- 
ers manifested itself particularly in an augment- 
ing slowness of thought, the children having to 
reflect longer before responding to questions. Pupils 
previously among the best scholars gradually re- 



ORGANIC DEFECTS 163 

trograded, until the teachers were obliged to 
cease occupying themselves with them. The 
mental loss became especially apparent in the 
study of arithmetic. The torpidity of thought 
was soon followed by a slowness of speech and 
an awkwardness in the execution of all move- 
ments of the body. A puffiness of the face set 
in; the eyelids, especially the lower ones, became 
(Edematous, and resembled small bags. The nose 
became broad, the lips thick, the abdomen dis- 
tended, and pronounced umbilical hernia usually 
followed. Hands and feet became thickened, as 
did also the skin of the entire body, so it could 
be lifted only in massive folds. The physiognomy 
became mask-like and expressionless, and often the 
greatly enlarged tongue, having no room in the 
mouth, protruded between the lips. Those who 
at the time of operation were still at a stage of 
rapid growth remained markedly backward in 
size thereafter. The hair upon head and body 
became sparse, sexual development became belated, 
and in many eases did not take place at all. The 
children took on a peculiarly senile appearance, 
their voices became raucous and hoarse; in severe 
cases all manifestations of speech ceased and only 



164 CHILD TRAINING 

inarticulate grunting noises were omitted. The 
gait became unsteady and waddling; equilibrium 
of the body could be maintained only by the aid 
of compensatory movements of the arms, through 
which the appearance of the children became 
still more conspicuous and repulsive. It was 
also noticeable that, with the development of 
cretinism, the children became increasingly hard 
of hearing or entirely deaf, and consequently the 
loss of the faculty of articulate speech was 
hastened all the more. Finally, it was noticed, as 
Bayon had pointed out, that the sweat glands in 
the cretinic skin atrophied, the children no longer 
perspired and their temperature became perma- 
nently subnormal. 

The cretinism which develops after the opera- 
tive ablation of the thyroid gland, or in conse- 
quence of its total absence, coincides so com- 
pletely with goitrous cretinism, both in regard to 
body symptoms and mental abnormalities, that 
their mutual dependence upon the deficiency of 
thyroid function can no longer be doubted. This 
coincidence is further emphasized by the fact that 
the artificial substitution of the thyroid secretion 
by feeding with animal thyroid preparations pro- 



ORGANIC DEFECTS 165 

duces good results in endemic as well as in 
sporadic cretinism. To this we shall recur in a 
succeeding chapter. 

Our terminology must be still further explained. 
Instead of cretinism the word "Myxedema" is 
also employed. This designation is partly in- 
accurate because it actually refers only to a 
symptom — to the swelling of the skin. Never- 
theless, it is frequently applied to-day to the entire 
aspect of the disease, myxedema and cretinism 
being employed as synonymous terms. The 
myxedema which arises after complete removal 
of goitrous tumors is designated as Cachexia 
Strumipriva, while the myxedema which follows 
total removal of the thyroid gland (in which no 
goiter is present but the gland is diseased in 
some other manner) is called Cachexia Thyreo- 
priva. This total removal is at present avoided 
whenever possible, and in all operations a rem- 
nant of functionating gland, if it still exists, is 
left undisturbed. 

To return to our subject, I would again lay 
stress upon the fact that there has been observed 
no case of myxedema which was not associated 
with considerable impairment of the psychic 



166 CHILD TRAINING 

functions. It is not unusual for myxedematous 
children during infancy to bear no noticeable 
symptoms of the disease, and for the manifesta- 
tions of cretinism to became clearly apparent only 
after the child has been weaned. The psychic 
defects of myxedema of childhood are repre- 
sented by an inhibition of mental development, 
by a continuance upon a lower plane, there being 
no advance to the next higher one in accordance 
with the principle of progression. All psychic 
reactions, if we are entitled so to call them, are 
markedly slackened. The slight susceptibility of 
myxedematous children to stimuli of any kind 
leads, in many cases, to a peculiar state of somno- 
lence. The insensitiveness to pain of cretinic in- 
dividuals is well known. In peculiar contrast 
stands the timorousness of many cretins, which 
often manifests itself most actively without ade- 
quate cause. Often, and not unjustly, attention 
has been called to the spitefulness and malice of 
cretins. In many instances these are due to the 
neglect with which such individuals have been 
treated, as well as to their insusceptibility to 
training. Besides, the unfortunate children are 
not infrequently ridiculed and bantered in the 



ORGANIC DEFECTS 167 

most unseemly manner, and thus their revengeful- 
ness is aroused. At times, however, they seem to 
have an actual ethical defect, to be afflicted with 
moral insanity, so to speak, and in certain locali- 
ties cretins have been notorious as incendiaries, 
thieves and vagrants. The tendency to vagrancy 
has been observed to be especially common in 
them, and often cretins who have been reared in 
comfort are later found as beggars upon the 
public roads. The proclivity of many cretins to 
uncleanliness and filth make it impossible to keep 
them decently drest and clean or to get them 
to live in dwellings adapted to human beings. 
This tendency toward uncleanliness often goes 
so far that they will not partake of decently 
prepared food, but prefer to live on refuse which 
they pick from the offal heap. Stoltzner reports 
that according to the Swiss historian, Josias 
Himmler, there existed in a village of the Canton 
"Wallis many cretins locally called "Guchen," 
who resembled and looked like animals, took no 
other food than hay and horse dung, and went 
about naked even in winter. Such cretins, reek- 
ing with dirt, pass their lives in stables, become 
more and more bestialized, and even crawl into 



168 CHILD TRAINING 

obscure corners as soon as other human beings 
approach. Attempts to rescue them from this 
inhuman existence often drive these unfortunates 
into spells of rage, in which, notwithstanding 
their usual mental lethargy, they turn upon, 
threaten, and even attack their would-be benefac- 
tors. Hence it can easily be understood why 
the people about such cretins usually submit to 
their peculiarities and permit them to deteriorate 
without offering a helping hand. 

Closely allied to cretinism is Mongolism, to 
which Arthur Mitchell first called attention. The 
term "Mongoloid idiocy" is derived from the re- 
semblance which the head formation of the afflicted 
persons bears to that of the Mongol or Kalmuck 
type of people. This Mongoloid type is always 
congenital and occurs in from 3 to 4 per 
cent, of all feeble-minded individuals. The cir- 
cumference of the head forms a shortened oval, so 
that the frontal and occipital planes are parallel 
and almost equal in extent. The skull is often so 
small that it seems to be microcephalic. The 
transverse diameter, however, is excessively large 
as compared to the shortened antero-posterior 
diameter. The hair of Mongoloid children is often 



ORGANIC DEFECTS 169 

sparse and straight, the skin rough; the face is 
broad and flattened, the nose broad, its bridge 
sunken, the nostrils facing upward. 

One of the most obvious signs of this condition 
is the outward and upward slant of the palpebral 
fissures, often accompanied by a sickle-like forma- 
tion of the skin of the upper eyelid, so it hangs 
over and in part covers the eye. Still another 
almost characteristic feature is the appearance of 
the tongue, which shows reddened, over-developed 
papillae and, to a greater or less extent, transverse 
fissures. The teeth are likely to be worn down 
and irregular in shape, size and position. The 
hands are ungainly, the fingers short and stumpy, 
the little ones flexedly contracted ; the feet also are 
heavy and misshapen, the toes clubbed, and one 
or more bent inward or attached to adjoining ones. 

A noticeable symptom in the Mongoloid type of 
imbecility is the laxness of the joints and muscles 
— a hyptonia — which gives rise to most curious 
performances. The children so afflicted have the 
habit of sitting cross-legged, tailor fashion, and 
BuUard speaks of one who used ''to shut himself 
up like a jack-knife, each foot on the opposite 
shoulder, and thus sleep for the night." I have 



170 CHILD TRAINING 

seen a Mongoloid child sitting upon the ground 
with its legs spread apart so that they formed one 
continuous line and at the same time throwing 
its arms backward so that the dorsal surface of 
each forearm was in extended and close contact 
with that of the other. Many observers have 
noted the presence of adenoid vegetations in these 
cases, and some go so far as to say not a single 
case of Mongolism exists in which expert exam- 
ination has not revealed the presence of marked 
vegetations in the naso-pharyngeal space. This 
would explain why the mouth is kept open and why 
the voice is so disagreeable in tone. As the opera- 
tive removal of these vegetations is not followed by 
any noteworthy improvements, however, we must 
assume the obstruction to nasal breathing bears no 
etiological relationship to the Mongoloid state, but 
is merely an augmenting incident. The general 
impression created by Mongoloid children is dis- 
tinctly ludicrous. Aside from the fact that they 
have the peculiar formation characteristic of the 
Mongol race, their appearance, made especially odd 
by the eczematous redness of the face which so 
often exists, is more or less that of a harlequin or 
clown. The brains of such children, as has been 



ORGANIC DEFECTS 171 

shown by numerous autopsies, are very simply 
developed, the convolutions being broad and coarse 
with but few subdivisions. The psychic comport- 
ment of Mongoloid children is correspondingly 
characterized by a marked retardation of intel- 
lectual development. Moreover, their emotional 
manifestations fluctuate in extreme and in abrupt 
transition. A Mongoloid child may be ungovern- 
edly joyful, laughing and joking in a most silly 
manner, and yet in a moment it will suddenly 
become quiet, refuse to move from its place, obey 
no command, stare fixedly at the floor, and respond 
to appeals, if at all, only with more or less violent 
outbursts of anger. 

The defects of speech manifest in all Mongoloid 
children are dependent upon the faulty develop- 
ment of the intellectual faculties. A high degree 
of stammering which renders the speech unin- 
telligible is very often present. In those children 
of the Mongoloid type, who have acquired a certain 
amount of school learning, the aggrammatic man- 
ner of speaking becomes distressingly conspicuous. 
Another characteristic is the absence of all manual 
dexterity. The children appear most awkward in 
carrying out the simplest handiwork and it takes 



172 CHILD TRAINING 

considerable time before they can be trained to 
dress and undress themselves unaided. Shuttle- 
worth claims that 50 per cent, of these children 
are the latest born of large families, whose pro- 
ductive power has become almost exhausted. It 
would appear that these Mongoloids are not fully 
developed at birth but are children whose develop- 
ment has been arrested at some particular stage 
of fetal life. They learn to walk late and remain 
uncleanly for a long time, a fact which makes 
bodily care of them exceedingly troublesome. 
From the beginning, their proper nutrition con- 
stitutes a difficult problem. The greatest trouble is 
caused by obstinate constipation, which is not 
relieved by otherwise dependable laxatives. 

The true cause of Mongolism is not known. There 
seems to be a strong probability, however, that dis- 
orders of the thyroid functions are mainly re- 
sponsible for this condition, as well as for the 
others we have already discust. At any rate, the 
fact, corroborated by Berkhan, Heller, and other 
writers, that Mongoloid children often show a 
marked improvement of condition after the admin- 
istration of preparations of thyroid gland, would 
lead us so to believe. 



ORGANIC DEFECTS 173 

In explanation of the more detailed considera- 
tion that I have given to sporadic cretinism and 
Mongoloid idiocy, it should be said that cases of 
these occur with frequency in the United States, 
while endemic or goitrous cretinism is compar- 
atively rare in the valleys of the mountain districts 
of North America. 

Among the psychic inhibitions of childhood due 
to organic disorder must also be classed those 
mental defects dependent upon a loss of sensory 
function. If we reflect that only by means of our 
sensory apparatus can we gain ideas of the outer 
world, it must be quite clear that the loss of one 
or more sensory functions can not be without in- 
fluence upon our ideational life. Never have I 
heard of a case of a human being congenitally 
lacking all sensory functions, that is, one who 
could neither see, nor hear, nor smell, nor taste, 
nor feel. Such a person, had one ever existed, 
would have truly represented a living death, for 
he could have had no concept of an existing world, 
nor any consciousness of his own being. 

Only the blind or the deaf, as well as those 
doubly afflicted individuals who are both blind and 
deaf, have any practical significance for thera- 



174 CHILD TRAINING 

peutie pedagogy. Absence of the sense of smell, 
taste or touch, is of little practical importance in 
this connection for it is rarely congenital, and, 
when occurring in later life, is always due to other 
diseases whose treatment does not fall within the 
scope of remedial pedagogy. Likewise, we need 
give no extended consideration in this work to 
sense deceptions, inasmuch as they are not depen- 
dent upon a lack of sensory perceptions, but are 
of central origin and belong in the domain of 
psychiatry. 

We will confine ourselves, therefore, to a presen- 
tation of those defects of conceptual life which are 
caused by functional incapacity of the two highest 
senses, sight and hearing. Let us first make clear 
the distinction between congenital or early acquired 
blindness or deafness and that which has arisen 
later in life. It is self-evident that children who 
become afflicted with blindness or deafness at a 
time when they have already acquired many 
firmly rooted ideas can never become so ideation- 
ally narrowed as are those children who have never 
had any opportunity to acquire visual or auditory 
impressions, either because they have been blind or 
deaf from birth or because their appereeptional 



ORGANIC DEFECTS 175 

power was still undeveloped at the time of the 
onset of the disease which caused the sensory loss. 
Through association of ideas the former are able 
constantly to reproduce and augment their store 
of ideas, even if further direct perceptions can 
not be conveyed to them. On the other hand, the 
latter can not start their association processes from 
any memory picture that might have arisen had 
the sensory function been present, and consequently 
they are unable to obtain new concepts of a cor- 
responding sensory nature. In itself the existence 
of blindness or deafness or both, even when con- 
genital, does not imply mental weakness or psycho- 
pathic inferiority. The intellectual faculties may 
be perfectly normal despite the lack of sensory 
function. But when any sense-defect is absolute 
and permanent, the harmonious development of the 
intellect is impeded by the fact that those ideas 
which pertain to the corresponding sensory class 
are either markedly restricted or entirely absent, 
and hence, without extraneous aid, can not be 
associated with other ideas to form an unbroken 
sequence. It follows, therefore, that if the blind 
or the deaf do not get the benefit of special training 
aids they will necessarily remain behind normal 



176 CHILD TRAINING 

children in mental development, and that when 
both visual and auditory functions are absent the 
psychic deficiency will be materially augmented 
under similar circumstances. That it is possible, 
however, to overcome the obstacles to mental 
development which are due to sensory defects, to 
make the psychic comportment of the blind or the 
deaf — ^yes, even of individuals afflicted with both 
defects — perfectly normal is shown by so many 
striking examples that it would be superfluous to 
enumerate them. It was especially the doctrine of 
sense vicariousness, the readjustment of the loss 
due to a defect of one sense through augmentation 
of the efficiency of the other senses, which fur- 
nished a basis for more successful educational work 
in the instruction of the blind and the deaf mutes. 
Formerly the blind and the deaf were regarded as 
being upon the same level as the feeble-minded. 
This assumption took its origin in the view, now 
long abandoned, that the nature of the feeble- 
mindedness was to be sought in a weakening of 
the sensory functions, which belief, in turn, was 
based upon a superficial analogy between the 
psychic comportment of the feeble-minded and 
that of the blind and deaf-mutes. Writers who had 



ORGANIC DEFECTS 177 

never occupied themselves seriously with a study 
of the psychology of the blind exprest the opinion 
that the want of the highest sense must cause a 
certain mental inferiority, a view which has long 
since been controverted by all the facts which 
experience has taught us. As concerns deaf-mutes 
it should be said that while their mental develop- 
ment takes place in a special manner, in conformity 
with certain laws which have not as yet been suffi- 
ciently elucidated, and while their mental state 
differs in numerous ways from that of persons in 
healthy possession of all their senses, it is improper 
to characterize this state as a pathological one. 

The pedagogic procedures to be employed for 
the blind and the deaf differ so radically from 
the prophylactic and therapeutic measures which 
are useful in weakmindedness and the psycho- 
pathic inferiorities, that I have considered it neces- 
sary to mention these sense-defects and the relation 
which they bear to mental deficiency only in order 
to controvert the misunderstanding which still 
prevails regarding them. 

Let us now proceed to a consideration of that 
Protean phase of disease known as idiocy. A 
consideration of the extensive group of disorders 



178 CHILD TRAINING 

comprehended in that word has been deferred until 
now because, without the explanations which have 
gone before, an understanding of idiocy would 
have been even more difficult than it now is. 

By idiocy we understand that congenital or 
early acquired feeble-mindedness of varying degree 
which is dependent upon irremediable brain defects, 
and which may be ameliorated but can not be 
cured. We have already seen that other organic 
defects, — for instance, an impediment to proper 
respiration, absence of the thyroid function, etc. — 
may be followed by mental weakness of any degree 
and even by complete dementia. Hence from the 
definition just given, it is clear that the char- 
acteristics which distinguish idiocy from other 
forms of psychic weakness are, first, the chronic 
disease of the brain — which is the cause of the 
idiocy — and, second, its incurability. Classifica- 
tions of idiocy have been made in accordance with 
the most varied suggestions, being based at one 
time upon etiology, at another upon pathological 
anatomy, and again upon the clinical symptoms. 
It is very difficult to decide in favor of any one of 
these methods, as none of them is entirely satis- 
factory. The most common classification of idiocy 



ORGANIC DEFECTS 179 

is into three groups — feeble-miudedness or high 
grade idiocy, imbecility or medium grade idiocy, 
and idiocy proper or low grade idiocy. 

Goddard, a few years ago, presented to the 
American Association for the Study of Feeble- 
mindedness an industrial classification, which is 
used by the Training School in Vineland, New 
Jersey, and in which, as formerly, the division into 
three groups has been adopted — the lowest grade 
being called idiots, the middle grade imbeciles, and 
the highest grade, formerly called feeble-minded, 
being designated by the term ''moron."* Each 
of these three groups is in turn divided into three, 
making nine degrees of defectives. 

To me it seems a classification most adapted to 
practical requirements, and deserving above all 
others of consideration by remedial pedagogy, is 
one which is based upon the educable capability 
of the defective child. This educable capability 
can be tested by means of the law of correspondence 
of apperception and fixation as enunciated by 
Wundt. Since passive attention, as compared with 
active attention, appears to be the simpler process. 



*The term "Moron" is taken from the Greek and means fool, 
or a person who is lacking in judgment and good sense. 



180 CHILD TRAINING 

we are justified in regarding the impossibility of 
arousing the child's passive attention as proof of 
the absence of any psychic developmental capacity. 
Of course this fixation test presupposes the non- 
existence of blindness or any other marked inter- 
ference Avith vision. So also must the existence of 
*'soul blindness" and its closely related failing, 
"soul deafness" be ruled out before the test can 
be applied. 

These terms respectively designate the loss of 
visual and auditory memory pictures. **Soul 
blindness" and "soul deafness" (also called "word 
blindness" and "word deafness") depend respec- 
tively upon diseases of the visual and acoustic 
spheres. As a result of such disease the affected in- 
dividual, altho able to see or to hear, does not rec- 
ognize what he has seen or does not understand what 
he has heard. The power of perception, therefore, 
is present and the power of apperception is lost, 
while in actual blindness and deafness the percep- 
tive as well as the apperceptive power is missing. 

I am not aware of the existence of reliable tests 
for the recognition of the apperceptional capability 
for auditory impressions or for impressions of 
smell, taste, and touch, which will give an insight 



X 



ORGANIC DEFECTS 181 

into the degree of apperceptional capability and 
cultural capacity as does the fixation test. All in 
all, it is certain that a child lacking in apper- 
ceptional power for impressions of light, even when 
these strike the fixation point of the eye, will also 
react only with great difficulty to other sensory 
stimuli even when no morbid disturbances of the 
sensory organs can be found. 

The best results are obtainable when the fixation 
test is undertaken in a fairly darkened room with 
a slowly moved candle flame being used to attract 
the child's attention. It is very possible the first 
attempts will give negative results. Frequently 
the unusual situation excites in the idiotic child a 
general unrest which arouses it to a state of marked 
opposition. 

In such cases it is commonly better to refrain 
from darkening the room completely, and to remain 
content with less intense stimuli of light. Even 
under such conditions repeated examinations will 
lead to a positive and correct decision. If the 
child continuously stares into the distance beyond 
the object of fixation, and if its attention can in no 
way be concentrated, then no apperceptional power 
is present. The child, in view of such a finding, 



182 CHILD TRAINING 

must be looked upon as unedueable and can not 
be the object of remedial pedagogic treatment. 

The fixation test gives the ultimate decision as 
to whether a deficient child should be placed in 
an institution for the educable or in one for the 
unedueable feeble-minded. Heller recommends 
that institutions for educable defectives should be 
under the direction of a pedagog, and those for 
the unedueable ones under the direction of a phy- 
sician. Strohmayer expresses himself in the same 
manner, making the premise, however, that it is 
always the physician and not the pedagog who 
should determine the qualifications for mental de- 
velopment which the child possesses, and the char- 
acter of the institution to which it is to be sent. 

It is extraordinarily difficult to conceive of a 
mental life ruled exclusively by passive apper- 
ception. With just as little success as we are able 
to represent to ourselves an "earliest" stage of 
development of consciousness, will we ever be able 
to conceive of a state of obscured consciousness in 
which a concept lifted by accidental influences over 
the threshold of consciousness, flares up rocket-like 
out of the confusion of faded impressions, only to 
disappear without leaving any permanent trace. 



ORGANIC DEFECTS 183 

Defectives whose attention can be passively 
aroused, in whom intensive sensory stimuli are 
followed by distinct manifestations of reaction, 
may be designated as educable in so far as it may 
be possible, by the employment of a proper method, 
to transform passive attention into active atten- 
tion. The forms of active and of passive apper- 
ception differ not only according to kind but also 
according to degree. Wundt expresses himself in 
regard to this as follows : 

"Careful self-observation reveals that active ap- 
perception is regularly preceded by passive apper- 
ception, since at first it is with a sensation of 
tolerance that we receive an impression and only 
afterward are the processes of attention which are 
connected with the sensation of activity set into 
play." 

While in passive attention only a conceptual 
motive is regularly present, in active attention a 
variety of concepts, from which a selection must 
be made, act as an impelling force. The con- 
nections between both forms of apperception make 
it clear that the method which causes the child to 
effect a choice between various objects is the one 
which will be best adapted to transform passive 



184 CHILD TRAINING 

attention into active attention. By that method 
a new factor is kindled in the mind of the child, 
a factor which may he designated as psychic 
spontaneity or self-activity. It is only after it has 
reached this stage of mental development that the 
weakminded child is capable of voluntary acts, 
for passive apperception requires merely an im- 
pulsive desire, which can be distinguished only 
with difficulty from reflex and automatic move- 
ments. 

In a classification of idiocy from the standpoint 
of education the most general relationships only 
can be considered, for each case of idiocy presents 
peculiarities which, when carefully considered, 
would make every attempt at classification futile. 
With this reservation the law of correspondence 
of perception and fixation may be applied to dis- 
tinguish three groups of feeble-minded persons, as 
classified by Goddard, the term feeble-minded here 
being used as a generic one including all mental 
defectives except the insane. 

First— The Moron group. This is characterized 
by spontaneous development of active apperception, 
which, however, is not able to furnish the concepts 
with the necessary clearness and distinctness. 



ORGANIC DEFECTS 185 

Second — The Imbeciles. In these we will ob- 
serve excitability of passive attention without any 
spontaneous development of active apperception. 

Third — Idiots. In which there is complete 
absence of all attention, even of passive attention. 
Children belonging to this group are uneducable. 

Before giving further attention to these various 
forms I should like to mention a proposition more 
or less recently made and locally adopted in certain 
States, that uneducable idiots, who are almost upon 
an animal plane, as well as "born criminals" and 
other irretrievable degenerates, should be arti- 
ficially sterilized in order to prevent them from 
propagating a degenerate progeny. The degenerate 
inmates of prisons or asylums concern us but little 
in this regard, for of course their propagating in- 
stinct can find no vent. But many persons in the 
classes of which we are now speaking lead lives 
of unrestricted freedom, and for this reason con- 
stitute a menace to human society. If we consider 
that such degenerates by means of a simple surgical 
procedure, by the severance of the seminal ducts 
or ovarian tubes, may be deprived of their propa- 
gating ability, without thereby being divested of 
their potentia eceundi, then we must admit not 



186 CHILD TRAINING 

only that this procedure does not appear at all 
inhuman, but also that it seems to be a step neces- 
sary for the public welfare. 

These reflections lead directly to the question of 
hereditary predisposition and the etiology of 
feeble-mindedness in general. In considering the 
cause of feeble-mindedness, we must separate con- 
genital or primary feeble-mindedness from the 
acquired or secondary form of this trouble. There 
can be no doubt that congenital feeble-mindedness, 
in the majority of instances, is dependent upon 
hereditary taint. Much less frequently it is the 
result of injuries to the head of the child during 
parturition. Acquired feeble-mindedness, which 
is comparatively uncommon in childhood, consists 
in the occurrence in congenitally healthy children 
of a marked decline of the mental faculties after 
a period of normal development, in consequence of 
injurious influences which directly or indirectly 
affect the brain. Among the causes of acquired 
feeble-mindedness in childhood the acute infectious 
diseases (measles, scarlet fever, meningitis, etc.) 
stand out as the most prevalent. Next in order 
of frequency are concussion of the brain, usually 
the result of a blow or a fall upon the head, and 



ORGANIC DEFECTS 187 

then severe emotional excitement, more particularly 
fright, which, as Domrich has so well said, in the 
suddenness of its occurrence, the brevity of its 
duration, and the harmfulness of its action, re- 
sembles a stroke of lightning. Finally, then, states 
of weakness which persist after exhausting dis- 
eases, as well as all prolonged states of malnutri- 
tion, may inhibit mental development and thus 
lead to cases of acquired feeble-mindedness. 

As we have stated, however, congenital feeble- 
mindedness and the hereditary taint upon which 
it is usually dependent, are of far greater import 
than the more or less infrequent secondary feeble- 
mindedness of childhood. 

In the causation of these congenital forms al- 
coholism in the parents constitutes a specially per- 
nicious influence. Comparing ten families of 
alcoholics with ten families of non-alcoholics, 
Demme has shown that in the former 17.5 per cent, 
and in the latter 81.9 per cent, of the children 
were mentally normal. Bourneville, in taking the 
anamnesis of one thousand idiots, found alcoholism 
to have existed in 471 cases in the father, in 84 
in the mother, and in 65 in both parents. The 
greatest factor in the etiology of congenital idiocy 



188 CHILD TRAINING 

is undoubtedly furnished by the existence of im- 
becility in either or both of the parents at the 
time of impregnation. Syphilis, as a directly 
transmitted disease, probably follows alcoholism in 
point of importance as an etiological factor in the 
production of idiocy, while tuberculosis of the 
parents through its general enfeeblement of the 
germplasm, ranks last in deleterious influence upon 
the physical and mental development of the child. 
The etiological influence of morbid conditions 
which affect the mother during pregnancy should 
not be left unmentioned. These conditions include 
not only the unhygienic modes of life and dis- 
orders of nutrition to which pregnant women of 
the lower classes are almost always subject, but, 
and this applies to all classes of individuals, 
emotional shocks and particularly an ascending 
gonorrhea of the female sexual organs. That these 
pernicious influences can not fail to affect the 
embryonal development of the child, and may even 
promote the occurrence of congenital idiocy, even 
if only through the creation of a predisposition to 
disease, is manifest. 

If we assemble all the factors of hereditary in- 
fluence, we have a gigantic mass in which inebriety, 



ORGANIC DEFECTS 189 

syphilis and other constitutional diseases of the 
parents, anemia, and chronic gonorrhea of the 
mother show their effects in the most disastrous 
manner. But if we add to this, as we must, abject 
poverty, which renders the proper nourishment 
and care of the hereditarily tainted children diffi- 
cult or impossible, and if we consider that these 
pitiable creatures are even looked upon as a burden 
by their procreators and are neglected in every 
way, or entirely abandoned, then the catalog of 
the causes which govern their deterioration has 
been made complete. 

In addition to hereditary taint, the only other 
cause of congenital feeble-mindedness which we 
have to consider is pressure upon the head of the 
child during birth. This may be due to a narrowed 
pelvis of the mother or to an incorrect adaptation 
of the forceps in instrumental delivery. The pres- 
sure may cause hemorrhages into the cortex or the 
interior of the brain, and the hemorrhages in turn 
may carry feeble-mindedness in their train. I 
have seen a- number of cases in which no other 
cause than traumatism to the head of the child 
during labor could be discovered. Various writers 
say that from 14 to 30 per cent, of all feeble- 



190 CHILD TRAINING 

minded have been delivered by means of instru- 
ments or that their delivery has been unduly de- 
layed. Furthermore, it has been shown that frac- 
tures of the infant skull may occur in difficult or 
prolonged parturition, even when no instrumental 
delivery has taken place. 

Still another injury which may take place during 
parturition, but which I mention only incidentally, 
as it can never cause feeble-mindedness but at most, 
and this onl}^ indirectly, a mental backwardness, 
is the opthalmia of the new-born which formerly 
led so often to blindness, to a loss of the most im- 
portant special sensory function. Inasmuch as it 
has been proved that the obligatory employment 
of the solution of nitrate of silver, first advocated 
by Crede, prevents this gonorrhoeal opthalmic in- 
fection, I need not dwell upon this point. 

The noxious influences which hereditary taint, 
injuries to the skull, infectious diseases, etc., exert 
in the production of idiocy, are of moment only 
in so far as they affect the brain. The pathological 
changes in the brain dependent upon such causes 
show great variations even microscopically. In 
some cases the arrest of development is so extended 
that the cerebellum, corpus callosum, and other 



ORGANIC DEFECTS 191 

parts of the brain are wanting. Often idiots thus 
lacking are also blind or deaf, or both blind and 
deaf. Here we must mention the form of idiocy 
first described by B. Sachs of New York, in 1887, 
as an arrest of cortical development, coming on 
during the course of the first year in apparently 
healthy children, characterized by blindness and 
paralyses, and rapidly ending in death. This 
form, known as Amaurotic family idiocy, is unique 
among congenital diseases because, as shown sub- 
sequently, of the specific and characteristic changes 
in the ganglion cells of the entire nervous system. 
Sometimes skin sensation in idiots is reduced to 
the point of complete anesthesia. It seems hardly 
necessary to say that in such cases the absence of 
sensory functions is of far greater import than 
it is in those persons who are blind or deaf or both 
blind and deaf but have a normal brain and con- 
sequently are not feeble-minded. 

Occasionally, also, there are found in idiots 
translocations of brain substance, asymmetry of the 
two halves of the brain, disturbed relationship of 
the single brain parts to each other, and abnor- 
malities of the convolutions, such as diminution 
in number or size. Microscopically, in addition to 



192 CHILD TRAINING 

syphilitic disease of the blood-vessels, we encounter 
in particular two different groups of anomalies. 
In some cases the entire brain cortex is found to 
be upon a very low level of development, having 
retained its fetal characteristics; in other cases 
the entire picture, which is made up of well- 
developed cells with large lacunse among them, 
indicates a terminated inflammatory process. 

The most marked alterations of the brain are 
evidenced by a hydrocephalus or microcephalus. 
Hydrocephalus consists in an augmenting accumu- 
lation of fluid in the cavities of the brain, especi- 
ally in the lateral ventricles, and a consequent 
expansion of the skull, whose sutures and fon- 
tanelles have not yet closed. The brain, however, 
does not increase in size with the expansion in the 
circumference of the skull; on the contrary, as a 
result of the chronic effusion of fluid, its mass be- 
comes lessened. The accumulation of fluid is 
caused by an inflammatory process of tuberculous 
origin, while the non-closure of the sutures is due 
to rhachitis and the softness of the bones which 
it produces. The hydrocephalic head either in- 
creases steadily to an enormous size, or the en- 
largement ceases permanently at an early stage, 



ORGANIC DEFECTS 193 

or such cessation occurs only temporarily and is 
followed later by a new and extraordinary increase. 

The injury which the brain suffers in conse- 
quence of the internal pressure varies in extent 
and depends upon the rapidity with which the 
fluid increases in the ventricles. If the increase in 
fluid takes place slowly, or if it comes to an early 
end, the disease will be followed by a feeble- 
mindedness of mild degree; or, if the brain has 
been able to adapt itself to the gradual or small 
increase in pressure, mental development may not 
become at all disordered. In exceptional instances, 
hydrocephalus has been associated with unusual 
intellectual development. For instance, we know 
that Cuvier and Helmholtz, in their youth, were 
both afflicted with mild hydrocephalus. Hence 
hydrocephalus in a child does not necessarily indi- 
cate mental weakness, nor do serous meningitis 
and rhachitis necessarily lead to hydrocephalic 
feeble-mindedness. 

In microcephalus, as is indicated by the term 
itself, skull and brain are unusually small. In 
consequence of the smallness of the skull, the fore- 
head is low and slants markedly backward, the 
vaulting of the skull is slight, the occiput appar- 



194 CHILD TRAINING 

ently absent, the arches of the eyebrows as well 
as the nose very prominent, the chin retreating, 
the scalp usually thick and full of ridges. Because 
of this formation of the head, the microcephalic 
individual has an animal-like appearance. Vogt 
has attempted, on account of these characteristics, 
to explain microcephaly as an atavistic formation, 
as a retrogression to a common primitive stem, a 
view which, however, was energetically opposed by 
Virchow. If we are to judge by the cases that 
have been reported in literature, the hereditary 
transmissability of microcephaly seems to be 
proved. 

Now let us take up more in detail the etiology 
of secondary feeble-mindedness. At first, tho, we 
must note the fact that it is not always possible to 
determine definitely whether a case is one of con- 
genital or acquired feeble-mindedness, for in some 
cases there is present from the beginning a certain 
inferiority, a weakness of the nervous system which 
manifests itself in abnormal outbursts of fright, 
causeless states of fear and similar symptoms. In 
such children a relatively slight cause may be 
sufficient to produce permanent mental impair- 
ment, which usually remains unobserved by the 



ORGANIC DEFECTS 195 

too-considerate parent until the more exacting 
demands are made upon the child's intelligence. 

The main factor in the production of secondary 
feeble-mindedness must undoubtedly be sought in 
the convulsions which occur so frequently in chil- 
dren, and which may be due to minor causes, such 
for instance, as intestinal irritation, digestive dis- 
turbances, etc. After these convulsions it is not 
unusual for a previously healthy child of normal 
mental development to retrograde or even to pass 
into a state of distinct feeble-mindedness. Lange 
explains this through the specific organization of 
the child's brain, which tends far more easily to 
inflammation and hemorrhages than does the brain 
of adults, and in which the extraordinary venous 
tension existing at the acme of the convulsion 
suffices to cause a rupture of blood-vessels, pro- 
ducing more or less injury of the brain. Not in- 
frequently the state of mental weakness observed 
after serious and exhausting disease passes away 
of itself, after a time, as the strength of the body 
increases. Occasionally, however, the improve- 
ment that takes place after several months is not 
followed, as might be expected, by complete re- 
covery of mental integrity. 



196 CHILD TRAINING 

Experience shows that in many eases of secon- 
dary feeble-mindedness memory apparently re- 
mains unaffected, the child being able to remember 
everything that has occurred during its sickness 
and even retain the knowledge which it previously 
acquired in school; but these unconnected frag- 
ments of knowledge the child, on account of its 
feeble-mindedness, does not know how to use, and 
they can not be utilized as a basis for any system- 
atic instruction. In other cases, however, especi- 
ally in those which occur after injury, the im- 
pairment of mental faculties does involve the 
memory. 

In the case of a six year old boy who came under 
my observation after being struck upon the head, 
the loss of memory for everything antedating the 
accident, and for the accident itself, lasted for two 
years. Then his memory returned, but he re- 
mained decidedly backward. 

Strohmayer reports the case of a boy who fell 
from a wagon, and who, after being unconscious 
for hours, remained permanently weakminded and 
lost all memory not only of the accident itself, but 
also of his entire preceding life. Still, cases might 
be cited to show that extended injury of the brain 



ORGANIC DEFECTS 197 

is not necessarily followed by any diminution in 
intellectual capacity. In fact, almost an entire 
frontal lobe has been destroyed without involving 
loss of mental integrity. 

Undoubtedly the period of pubescence deserves 
special consideration as a factor in the develop- 
ment of secondary feeble-mindedness. The view 
is widespread that the changes which occur about 
the period of puberty are able to bring about a 
spontaneous improvement of an existing feeble- 
mindedness. This view, of course, is wrong, for 
congenital feeble-mindedness, as well as that which 
has been acquired very early in life, both show 
a tendency to grow worse instead of better under 
the influence of these changes. This is shown more 
especially in hebephrenia or dementia praecox, that 
acquired form of mental weakness described under 
various names by Heinroth, Esquirol, Moreau, 
Morel and Maudsley, but by none better than by 
Edward Hecker. The name hebephrenia is due to 
Kahlbaum, that of dementia prtecox to Clouston, 
who in 1888 spoke of "premature dementia." 

Hecker 's description is as follows: "Usually be- 
tween the 18th and 22nd years, after the onset of 
puberty, beginning with a melancholic stage, the 



198 CHILD TRAINING 

disease represents in a way a pathological and dis- 
torted reversion to the years of childhood with 
their characteristic symptoms of foolish excita- 
bility. Hebephrenia usually ends in a lasting 
dementia. In its commencement it may easily be 
overlooked, as the decline of mental power proceeds 
but very gradually and therefore can be recognized 
only through close observation. A symptom of 
hebephrenic dementia which is almost always pres- 
ent is excessive masturbation, carried on the more 
recklessly the more the intellectual defect increases. 
Yet it would be erroneous to attribute the mental 
decline to the masturbation, inasmuch as this de- 
cline takes its course even when the masturbatory 
acts are prevented by strict supervision." 

Clouston, summing up the psychic life of many 
primary dementias, says, ''Patients simply become 
less acute in emotion and judgment, less powerful 
in volition, less able to do their work or take care 
of themselves, and less social and more 'silly,' 
these symptoms gradually going on to marked 
dementia." These citations show how important 
this problem of dementia prsecox is for the upper 
grade classes of high-school pupils who are at the 
age of its most frequent development. 



ORGANIC DEFECTS 199 

Now, to revert to the various forms of idiocy 
previously mentioned, it will be found that in the 
lightest grades of congenital feeble-mindedness the 
power of spontaneously directing the attention to 
various surrounding objects is always present, but 
the apperception, as a rule, is so superficial and of 
such short duration that relatively few ideas are 
produced, and these can not bear comparison, as to 
clearness and precision, with the corresponding 
concepts of normal children. The more limited 
and incomplete the concepts which a feeble-minded 
child possesses, the more difficult does the test for 
the behavior of its attention become. This test is, 
of course, influenced by the particular form of 
feeble-mindedness, by the presence of an increased 
or a diminished irritability — in other words, by the 
presence of excitement or apathy. 

In testing the state of the attention in an 
apathetic imbecile whose entire emotional life is 
under the influence of deep-seated inhibitions, 
errors may easily occur. In such individuals we 
find an all-pervading sluggishness of every activity, 
and frequently the reaction to a mental impression 
follows so tardily that we may be in doubt whether 
one has taken place at all. If, for instance, an 



200 CHILD TRAINING 

apathetic imbecile child be asked to distinguish in 
sequence between the objects A and B, the request 
to hand the object A may be carried out only after 
the object B had already been asked for, and thus 
may mislead the observer into believing the child 
confounds the objects A and B with each other. 
In excited imbeciles it is less difficult to arouse the 
attention, but their attentiveness is so unstable or 
shifty that the choice between different objects 
becomes difficult, this being due to the fact that 
they are not able to hold any idea for even a very 
brief period of time. The peculiar state which in 
the normal child we designate as inattention or 
distraction lends a very characteristic impress to 
the psychic comportment of the excited imbecile. 
In such individuals, even when they are but slightly 
affected, the instability of the attention leads to 
an inconstancy of the will which makes them in- 
capable of forming any decision based upon pre- 
cise deliberation. The apathetic imbecile, on ac- 
count of inadequate conceptual stimuli, is always 
behind hand in his determinations, and for this 
reason, if for no other, must always clash with the 
happenings of the moment. The excited imbecile 
acts without considering the possible consequences 



ORGANIC DEFECTS 201 

of his doings; he does not understand how to esti- 
mate given conditions and to adapt himself to his 
environment. Consequently, as Heller says, every 
imbecile, regardless of the realities of life which 
are beyond his comprehension, constructs around 
himself a special world. 

We can recognize most clearly how the entire 
psychic comportment of the imbecile is funda- 
mentally governed by pathologically altered pro- 
cesses of apperception. This may also be said of 
the numerous transitional forms of imbecility, 
which are neither pronouncedly apathetic nor 
excited, and in which a careful psychologic analysis 
will always demonstrate that the specific manner of 
each individual imbecile's reaction to external in- 
fluences is dependent upon a special comportment 
of his attentiveness ; thereby also we are able in part 
to understand his anomalies of volition and action. 

The feeble-minded of a higher grade — those who 
might almost be still classed as imbeciles and give 
some evidence of an arousal of passive attention, 
yet show no spontaneous development of active 
apperception — must also be divided into the 
apathetic and the excited. Apathetic idiots of this 
kind sit about all day sunk in brooding lethargy. 



202 CHILD TRAINING 

Only with great difficulty can their attention be 
excited. Their thoughts follow very slowly, and 
they cling with difficulty to the few ideas thus 
acquired and beyond which their mental horizon 
can not be extended. Their psychic manifestations 
show marked unvariability and monotony, and their 
emotions as well are persistently and unconcern- 
edly amiable. While eating, their contentment is 
indicated by a grinding of the teeth. Some give 
evidence of pleasure at seeing relatives or friends. 
In general the vegetative instincts predominate. 
Emotions of the more complicated kind, such as 
thankfulness, sorrow, etc., do not exist. The bodily 
activities can to a certain degree be trained, so 
that these children may learn to stand, walk and 
jump, to undress themselves, and, when the teacher 
has the requisite qualifications and perseverance, 
to do all kinds of mechanical work, handicraft, 
gardening, etc. 

The attention of the higher grade excited idiots 
can be more easily aroused, but it is hardly possible 
to rivet it. They are constantly being distracted, 
and wander from this to that. They connect one 
idea with another that is entirely unrelated, and 
soon allow both to sink back into oblivion. Their 



ORGANIC DEFECTS 203 

moods are vacillating; at one moment they are in- 
temperately joyous, at the next they go into a state 
of irritability and peevishness. Physically they are 
constantly in a state of unrest; they run about, 
clap their hands, laugh, cut grimaces, stick all sorts 
of objects into their mouths, scream or babble 
senseless stuff. Notwithstanding the greater ease 
with which their passive attention may be aroused, 
they are, in view of their instability, decidedly 
more difficult to train than is the apathetic idiot 
of the same grade. Frequently they manifest an 
imitative impulse. Occasionally, also, they have 
sense deceptions and as a result develop delusions. 
Sometimes the feeble-minded of this grade assimi- 
late complete series of impressions and add them 
to their store of sensory pictures. In certain cases 
impressions are even retained for an unusual length 
of time. Occasionally there exists a one-sided but 
astonishingly strong development of the memory 
for music, numbers, etc. Such "idiot-savants" 
are always mere imitators and never give evidence 
of the slightest spontaneous thought; the contrast 
between their one talent and their general feeble- 
mindedness is very striking. The single talent 
usually is very precociously developed and is lost 



204 CHILD TRAINING 

before adult life is reached. Among these pre- 
cocious talents the one most frequently encountered 
is that for mental arithmetic. Of thirteen examples 
of arithmetical prodigies collected by E. W. Scrip- 
ture in 1891, six were men of eminence or genius, 
while the remaining seven were idiots possessing 
the single talent. In these idiots, however, there 
can be no question of any development of the 
consciousness of self, of the formation of a mental 
personality, as the one-sided talent ordinarily is 
counterbalanced by more marked defects of the 
remaining mental powers, so that any independent 
elaboration of the conceptual store is entirely out 
of the question. 

Finally, in so far as the feeble-minded of the 
third and lowest grade are concerned, these are so 
disordered in their elementary functions, that they 
remain decidedly behind the state even of a young 
animal. Even sucking nourishment from the 
mother's breast is difficult for the new-born lowest 
grade idiot, and often enough also in later years 
these children must be fed and nourished by 
means of paps and fluids. These same idiots are 
aroused from their torpidity only by a certain few 
sensations; above all, hunger produces a state of 



ORGANIC DEFECTS 205 

restlessness in them. Many, however, go without 
food astonishingly long, and would, perhaps, starve 
if nourishment were not forced upon them. 
"Where there exists so limited a store of ideas or 
instincts, restricted almost exclusively to satisfying 
the animal desires, associative thought, as Wey- 
gandt justly remarks, plays a very minimal role. 
The sight of food most easily arouses corresponding 
concepts in these idiots. Often even the desire for 
defecation and urination is not felt, and for this 
reason many of these idiotic children are always 
unclean. Even processes of disease do not call 
forth any psychic expression of fear or of pain, 
so that low-grade idiots may die quietly as a result 
of such serious and otherwise painful diseases as 
pleuro-pneumonia, meningitis, etc. 

Where almost all concepts are absent, where at- 
tention of any kind can not be aroused even by 
the most intense excitation, there can scarcely be 
a question of memory and still less of spontaneous 
thought activity, of formation of opinion and de- 
cision, or of the development of any consciousness 
of self. For idiots upon this lowest plane, which 
is often complicated by blindness, deafness, and 
other sense defects, the acquirement of speech is 



206 CHILD TRAINING 

entirely impossible; there exists either complete 
mutism or instead of speech a stupid gibbering and 
screeching. Motor accomplishments also are of the 
simplest kind. It must be looked upon as a success 
in some of these children if they can be taught even 
to sit up. Others manifest continuous restless- 
ness and motor agitation, without being able to 
carry .out the slightest purposeful movement. 
Occasionally these idiots later lose entirely that 
knowledge of walking which they had already 
acquired, and hold their legs in a posture adapted 
to creeping. An important role is played in idiocy 
by the imperative or obsessive movements which, 
without any sense or purpose, cause the arms and 
legs to be metrically raised and lowered, the body 
to be bent and turned, and the facial muscles to be 
distorted into grimaces. Such movements of the 
extremities, sometimes dependent upon cortical 
irritation, may be sufficiently violent to produce 
self-injury, yet the markedly insensitive idiot 
makes no attempt to arrest them. 

In about one-half of these untrainable feeble- 
minded children, we encounter convulsions of 
epileptiform nature, which in connection with 
complete or incomplete unilateral paralysis, con- 



ORGANIC DEFECTS 207 

tractures, choreiform movements, increase or ab- 
sence of the deep reflexes, diseases of co-ordination, 
etc., point to pathological changes in the central 
nervous system. Evidences of degeneration are 
especially frequent and marked — for instance, 
heavy ear lobes with lobules missing so they re- 
semble a pitcher handle, noticeably high or flat 
palates, a protrusion of the lower jaws or of the 
central part of the upper jaw, developmental 
defects in the sexual organs, absence of the hair on 
face and body, cleft palate, dwarfism, abnormal 
skull formation, etc. Yet cases in which the ap- 
pearance alone would not excite a suspicion of the 
existence of an incurable degree of idiocy are not 
infrequent. 

Common to the feeble-minded of all but the very 
highest grades are disorders of speech, the degree 
of which does not necessarily correspond to the 
weakness of intelligence. It may happen that a 
high-grade idiot may be as far advanced in its 
speech development as a low-grade imbecile, and 
for this reason it would be an error to classify 
the various grades and forms of feeble-minded- 
ness in accordance with the manner of speaking. 
As a matter of fact, we find many of the lower- 



208 CHILD TRAINING 

grade idiots who are completely wanting in any 
appereeptional power, capable of mechanically 
imitating the spoken word, without having any 
idea of the meaning. It has already been men- 
tioned that the stammering and aggramatism 
of feeble-minded children are identical with those 
peculiarities of speech which in the normal child 
are temporary, and are observed only at an early 
stage of its speech development; in the idiotic 
child these defects remain permanent. 

A form of speech disorder which may be con- 
trasted with those forms dependent on an insuffi- 
cient development of intelligence is aphasia. In 
cortical motor 'aphasia, which has been longest 
known, speech understanding remains preserved, 
but the children are not able to speak because the 
center for speech movements is disordered. 

Finally, a word as to stuttering. This defect, 
which is often supposed by the uninformed, to he 
a sign of mental deficiency, long ago was shown to 
have no causal relationship whatever to idiocy or 
feeble-mindedness. 

It behooves us yet to consider that ethical in- 
feriority (moral insanity) which in many idiots is 
an accompaniment of the intellectual weakness. 



ORGANIC DEFECTS 209 

Here again we must differentiate various grades, 
since all possible degrees, from moral indifference 
to complete perversity of the instincts and 
emotions, may be present. There exist feeble- 
minded children whose moral conduct leaves noth- 
ing to be desired, and the evil tendencies and 
habits of many others are essentially the product 
of neglect or bad training, as is best proved by 
their being culturable not only intellectually but 
also morally and emotionally. There are still 
others, however, in whom a congenital moral de- 
generation exists, and with these all attempts at 
training will remain fruitless. 

Congenital moral imbecility may be looked upon, 
as Spencer has shown, as a state of persistence at 
that stage of development in which the egoistic 
impulses predominate. While every human being 
during his first years "passes through a phase of 
that moral state which is characteristic of the 
barbaric stem from which he is descended," and 
while normal children progress from the stage of 
the savage to that of the morally cultured being, 
the moral imbecile does not advance beyond the 
savage stage. His memory is usually good, and he 
may become clever at games and mechanical pur- 



210 CHILD TRAINING 

suit — in fact, he is often musical and sometimes 
artistic — yet he is always egotistic, conceited, 
boastful and untruthful. In such children altruistic 
feelings are absent; all their acts disclose an in- 
credible brutality ; the most vicious means are used 
by them in order to gain an advantage; good 
example makes no impression, and punishment 
remains entirely without effect. Such moral de- 
generates, frequently epileptic, assiduously practise 
masturbation, and even endeavor to satisfy their 
intense sexual impulses through attacks on persons 
of the opposite set. Anti-social actions of this and 
other kinds, the antipathy of these creatures to 
all work, their tendency to vagabondage and pros- 
titution, as a rule lead them into far-reaching 
criminality, until finally their moral defect is 
recognized and its criminal manifestations coun- 
teracted by internment in some institution for the 
care of the incurable feeble-minded. 

B. Functional Disorders 

From the chapter of those mental disorders of 
childhood which are based upon bodily abnor- 
mality, let us turn our attention to the nervous 
disturbance of a functional character. 




Courtesy of Dr. W. E. Fernald. 

Microcephalic Idiot. 
Massachusetts School for Feeble-minded. 



FUNCTIONAL DISORDERS 211 

During the last decade so much has been written 
about nervousness in childhood that it is not easy 
for the impartial observer to arrive at a conclusive 
opinion from these writings, which conflict with 
one another in so many ways. According to many 
authors, it is the school which is responsible for 
the increasing nervousness of childhood. This is 
partly true, for the school must reckon with a 
certain average qualification and must formulate 
its demands accordingly. It may easily happen, 
therefore, that the less talented child, in order not 
to remain behind other children, will be obliged 
to over-exert itself, until finally it is no longer able 
to keep pace, and breaks down under the over- 
strain. We will see later how, by means of the 
Montessori method, this problem of over-strain in 
school may be solved. For the moment we will 
emphasize the fact that a close observation of 
nervous children will always reveal them to be 
individuals of a neuropathic taint, having either 
congenitally diminished powers of nerve resistance 
or a nervous system which has been deleteriously 
affected by disease of early childhood. 

Three categories of nervous children may be 
differentiated. There are children in whom the 



212 CHILD TRAINING 

nervous symptoms pass away of themselves with 
increasing age, so that by the time they are ready 
for school, they show a fairly normal disposition. 
In other children, except for slight variations 
caused by the greater or lesser demands upon their 
capabilities, the nervousness remains constant and 
then forms the basal note to which their entire 
psychic development is attuned. The third cate- 
gory is characterized by a constantly progressive 
increase of the nervous state. 

All these nervous children react to relatively 
slight excitations, with abnormally intense emo- 
tional outbreaks; the emotional reaction is of un- 
usual persistency and does not pass away with a 
cessation of the excitation. The children are easily 
fatigued and recuperate slowly. A noticeable in- 
crease of the nervous manifestations is produced 
by happenings which would not at all affect a 
normal child, or, at any rate, would not affect it 
unfavorably. Children who have this failing are 
found, upon attaining the school age, to be in a 
state that necessarily precludes all profitable in- 
struction. At the same time no organic changes 
to explain the nervous functional incapacity are 
demonstrable, and these children, being, as they 



FUNCTIONAL DISORDERS 213 

are, upon the boundary between health and disease, 
can be recognized as ''atypical" only by means of 
the psychic methods of examination which we have 
already mentioned. 

One of the symptoms most frequently present in 
the nervous child is disordered sleep. Nocturnal 
terror, talking, screaming, and constant changing 
of posture during sleep, are nervous manifesta- 
tions to which marked significance must be given, 
provided they occur persistently over a long period 
of time. The exhaustion which follows restless, un- 
refreshing sleep, must in time lead to increased 
nervousness, which in turn becomes a source of 
still more restless sleep, so that a mutational inter- 
action takes place similar to that which we have 
noted as existing in the case of masturbation. 
Further nervous symptoms of great importance are 
abnormal excitability, causeless attacks of anger, 
dizziness and headaches. Many children who other- 
wise seem healthy have frequent headaches without 
ascertainable cause. Usually this would seem to 
be a fatigue symptom occurring toward the end 
of an instruction period in an organism of dimin- 
ished resistance. In other cases these symptoms 
are often accompanied by phobias and obsessions 



214 CHILD TRAINING 

of varied kind, which may or may not lead to 
peculiar imperative acts. 

Of the phobias many are looked upon as idiosyn- 
crasies, from which they often can not be dis- 
tinguished. Such, more particularly, are a terror 
of certain kinds of animals, mice, spiders, worms, 
and cats; an antipathy to certain forms of food, 
as the white of eggs, the skin of boiled milk, etc.; 
still others are a fear of the dark and of thunder. 
The most common obsessions are those through 
which children are impelled to count everything, 
the steps on the stairs, the cracks in the sidewalk, 
etc. ; and these are frequently associated with one 
of doubt which leads them, in the belief that they 
have made mistakes, to go back and count the same 
steps and cracks over again. Obsessions of doubt 
also may occur alone, the children thus troubled 
being unable, for instance, to dispel the thought 
that they have not properly closed a door, or 
properly washed their hands, or done their school 
work as they should, or told the absolute truth. 
Closely allied to these obsessions, all of which are 
indicative of a neurasthenic state, are those in 
which the idea is followed by a motor manifesta- 
tion. These are the tics or habit spasms, which 



FUNCTIONAL DISORDERS 215 

consist in blinking the eyelids, head-nodding, and 
head- jerking, gesticulatoiy movements and the 
emission of raucous tones and noises. 

Among the obsessions, furthermore, must often 
be classed that impulse for collecting which in- 
duces children to assemble the most extraordinary 
things, and also that mania for excessive order and 
cleanliness which is encountered in some neuras- 
thenic children. Strohmeyer designates this as a 
conscience impulse, and tells of children who were 
impelled by their pedantic sense of symmetry to 
place things in order not only in their own homes 
but in other places — ^yes, even to take the various 
foods of their meals according to alphabetic se- 
quence. 

That Protean phase of disease known as hysteria 
also is not infrequent in childhood, the percentage 
of boys and girls affected being about equal. 
Through the power of their imagination the 
afflicted children produce paralysis and all the 
other symptoms of disease which we can also 
observe in the adult hysteric. As a rule, the juve- 
nile hysteric progresses most rapidly in intellectual 
development. To a certain extent this is due to 
the desire, common to all hysterics, to force them- 



216 CHILD TRAINING 

selves into the foreground of interest to arouse 
the attention of other persons. Nevertheless the 
intelligence of hysterical children ordinarily shows 
conspicuous gaps, which are not overshadowed by 
their precociousness, and which can be overlooked 
only by unobserving parents or teachers. At any 
rate, the intelligence of hysterical children does not 
by any means keep them from allowing their 
unlimited egotism always and everywhere to 
transgress all restraint. Among them are many 
little barbarians who do not recoil at any infamy, 
lying, slander, theft, or incendiarism, and who, 
through the subtlety with which they endeavor to 
satisfy their desires, give evidence of a high degree 
of moral degradation. Such children are especi- 
ally subject to psychic contagion, and this accounts 
for those mental epidemics which sometimes go 
through an entire school. Hysterical tremors, con- 
vulsions, paralysis, coughs or choreiform move- 
ments have been known to start in one child, then 
affect another and thus implicate every susceptible 
child in the various classes until, to stamp out the 
epidemic, it became necessary to close the school 
and isolate the affected children. 

This phenomenon is of importance in reaching 



FUNCTIONAL DISORDERS 217 

an understanding of those psychic epidemics which 
may occur in the later lives of these very same 
individuals. Every one at all conversant with 
history knows how a relatively slight provocation 
may cause an eruption of violence in masses of 
people suffering from general discontent. An 
outbreak of this kind is not always, as might be 
assumed, of political nature; not infrequently it 
originates in that religious exaltation which we 
neurologists so frequently observe in neurotic and, 
more particularly, in hysterical individuals. 
Pedagogy can not pass by such psychic manifesta- 
tions, whether they disclose themselves in the form 
of political revolution or religious exaltation, with- 
out taking a definite stand. The victims of these 
exalted ideas are always individuals with inferior 
brains, with nervous systems deficient in powers of 
resistance ; and the psychiatric literature is replete 
with reports of horrifying crimes committed by 
children while in hysterical conditions or in states 
of religious exaltation. It is certain that these 
germs of crime, no matter under what guise they 
appear, will proliferate and overgrow in conse- 
quence of a misguided education, just as on the 
other hand they may at least be rendered harmless 



218 CHILD TRAINING 

through properly adapted pedagogic and medical 
measures. 

If we again survey the entire field of psychic 
abnormalities of childhood, we note first and fore- 
most the disorders of the intellect and the diseases 
of the will. The disorders of the intellect manifest 
themselves chiefly in a mental retardation, which 
is not necessarily dependent upon intellectual 
weakness, but may also be caused by simple paucity 
of ideas and a concomitant incapacity for orderly 
thought association and formation of judgment. 
Especially let us again recall that through obstruc- 
tion of nasal breathing, or partly through the 
absence of the thyroid function or through the 
absence of sense perceptions in blindness and deaf- 
ness, or, finally, in consequence of complete neglect, 
a weakness of the intellect, which in reality does 
not exist, may be simulated. Mental retardation 
must therefore not be confounded with genuine 
mental weakness, with primary or secondary 
feeble-mindedness, dependent respectively upon 
congenital brain defects or upon brain defects 
acquired at an early age. 

Among the various grades of genuine feeble- 
mindedness, we must again distinguish between 



FUNCTIONAL DISORDERS 219 

those which are educable and those which are un- 
educable. So far as disorders of the will are con- 
cerned, these may be dependent upon a weakness 
of the intelligence and an inability to appreciate 
the significance of one's acts. On the other hand, 
it is also possible that the intelligence and power 
of thought may be unaffected, while the feelings 
and emotions, the character and moral sense, are 
so altered pathologically that the impulse toward 
the commission of immoral acts can not be resisted, 
notwithstanding the recognition of their repre- 
hensibility. Finally, we have also become ac- 
quainted with a large class of psychopathic indi- 
viduals who are such not in consequence of organic 
defects but on account of functional nervous dis- 
orders due, in the majority of cases, to neuropathic 
taint, and who, intellectually as well as ethically, 
occupy a border-line between health and disease. 



PART FOURTH 
PROPHYLACTIC TRAINING 

A. The Parents 

Prophylactic training should start with the par- 
ents even before the children are born. For if the 
children come into the world afflicted with constitu- 
tional anomalies, it will, indeed, be a difficult task 
to combat successfully the psychic defects which 
develop upon congenitally syphilitic, rhachitic or 
neurasthenic soil. We have seen how important 
a part hereditary taint plays in the production of 
the physical and mental abnormalities of the child ; 
we also know that the ominous significance of 
hereditary influence is enhanced by the erroneous 
training usually received in the parental home of 
children afflicted with such abnormality. It 
is, therefore, most important to restrict the 
influence of heredity as far as possible, and to 
remember that in the field of prophylactic educa- 
tion, as in so many others, the adage, "prevention 
is better than cure," holds good. 

221 



222 CHILD TRAINING 

Hereditary taint with its pernicious consequences, 
could best be obviated if steps were taken to pre- 
vent the birth of those children, who, according 
to all probability, could not escape the degeneracy 
linked with faults existing in the parents. Our 
legal enactments are by no means adequate for 
the attainment of this end; for, while they well 
may prevent the marriage of insane or other de- 
generate persons, they can not prevent them from 
extramaritally propagating their kind. It is for 
this reason that I now return to the proposal al- 
ready mentioned, whereby through an operative 
intervention the fertilization of the ovum and the 
generation of offspring are prevented, but the in- 
dividuals are not deprived of their reproductive 
organs nor of their copulative powers. It is not 
so much a question of preventing their marriage 
as it is of preventing them, whether married or 
not, from giving birth to degenerate offspring. 
This is why I am not in entire accord with those 
who would extend even further the laws against 
marriage of persons closely related by ties of blood. 
Marriage between blood relations becomes a menace 
to the progeny only when both parents are afflicted 
with morbid familial peculiarities which, through 



THE PARENTS 223 

the union, become aggregated in the children; 
moreover, should this danger be present, its evil 
results could still be avoided by a prevention of 
conception. This same measure may also be advo- 
cated when, after marriage, the parents become 
afflicted with those constitutional disorders which 
we know from experience may become a menace 
to the health of their children. The moral and 
ethical aspect of the question of the prevention of 
fecundation I expect to consider at another time. 
Of course, this step for the restriction of hereditary 
taint can not be enforced by legal provision; but 
the severance of the seminal ducts or ovarian tubes 
of incurable degenerates, especially in those with 
criminal instincts, has already been adopted as a 
legal measure in several states of the Union with 
the purpose of preventing the transmission and 
dissemination of bodily and mental degeneracy. 
All legal enactments will fail of their purpose, 
however, if the people have not first been instructed 
and enlightened, and nowhere is this of greater 
importance than in the field of the hereditary 
transmission of disease. 

The next measure to be considered is the cure 
of constitutional anomalies, in so far as such cure 



224 CHILD TRAINING 

lies within the range of possibility. In the treat- 
ment of pure neuroses, psychotherapy, which also 
plays a large role in the management of the 
neuroses of childhood, must be accorded the con- 
sideration which it deserves. Parents must be 
made to understand that hysteria, neurasthenia and 
other functional nervous disorders warrant the 
expectation of neuropathically tainted progeny, and 
that other diseased states, above all syphilis and 
tuberculosis, establish a primarily morbidly altered 
germplasm, or will, by means of persistent noxious 
influences acting through the placental circulation, 
deleteriously affect the development of the embryo. 
Not the least of such noxious influences is the 
addiction to alcoholic stimulants. To a certain 
extent appreciation of the pernicious influence 
which alcoholism in the parents has upon the 
procreative act and upon pregnancy is at last be- 
ginning to be diffused among all classes of people. 
In the main, it is the task of the physician to aid 
in the dissemination of this knowledge, and he 
should rather caution against the use of alcohol in 
any form on account of its eminently toxic prop- 
erties than advocate its employment on account of 
its slight therapeutic qualities. All this fs import- 



THE PARENTS 225 

ant not only in view of the severe disorders of 
mind and body to which the children of alcoholic 
parents are inevitably exposed, but also because 
alcoholic, nervous, or otherwise diseased parents 
are improper educators, and therefore are likely to 
add to the evil consequences of hereditary taint 
all those pernicious influences which capriciousness, 
injustice, and coarseness will have upon the develop- 
ment of the wretched offspring. Parents who, not 
having been properly trained, are unable to control 
themselves, certainly can not train their children 
properly. Here I can but repeat what I have 
already said in my book on Suggestion and Psycho- 
therapy: "Adults, too, require training — fre- 
quently more so than children. Consider, for 
example, those drones of wealth whose entire lives 
are filled with outward form and trivialities, whose 
lack of serious purpose makes them easy victims 
to the unbridled play of their imaginations. Con- 
stituting, as they do, so large a proportion of 
sufferers from neurasthenia and other psycho- 
neuroses, they teach us particularly that inordinate 
relaxation leads to imaginary disorders, ideational 
diseases, quite as much as does overtaxation 
through work. When races or individuals — ener- 



226 CHILD TRAINING 

vated through luxurious living, unwilling to 
accept further cares and obligations — look on hard 
work as a disgrace, they represent the dead twigs 
of humanity, which have fallen and must be re- 
placed by fresh shoots; they have become useless 
and must give place to those who, through earnest 
work, have remained young, strong, and active." 

The domain of prophylactic education of the 
parents also includes, as we have indicated, a proper 
surveillance of the pregnant state. In women who 
have already given birth to weak-minded children, 
or who have lost children through brain disease 
and convulsions, this surveillance must be enforced 
with special care. Berkhan reports a series of 
cases of mothers who, despite the fact that they 
had previously given birth to premature or feeble- 
minded children, or solely to children who had died 
in convulsions, brought healthy children into the 
world after subjecting themselves, during preg- 
nancy, to a special dietetic and hygienic mode of 
living. What counts particularly in such cases 
is not so much nutritious and strengthening food 
as a complete change in the daily habits and mode 
of life. This change, together with the tonic 
remedies employed, is said to effect a complete 



THE PARENTS 227 

transformation of the woman's constitution and 
thereby to influence favorably the embryonal 
development of the child. Unfortunately, in the 
employment of such methods among the poor, 
almost insurmountable difficulties are encountered, 
as the mothers must continue to work hard in 
order to support themselves or to maintain their 
homes. 

The not unusual occurrence of brain disorder 
and the subsequent development of feeble-minded- 
ness after head pressure caused by incorrectly 
adapted forceps during instrumental delivery 
shows the necessity for guarding the infantile skull 
from all injury during the act of parturition. 

Additional instruction which should form part 
of the prophylactic training of the parents con- 
cerns the means of properly nourishing and caring 
for their new-born. Strange as it may seem, I must 
here again lay stress upon the necessity for teach- 
ing parents that the administration of alcohol in 
any form, and even in the smallest quantity, for 
the purpose of strengthening or quieting the child, 
is inadvisable. We will refer to this again far- 
ther on. 



228 CHILD TRAINING 



B. The Children 

Wliile the object of all prophylactic training of 
the parents is to eliminate, so far as possible, the 
factor of hereditary taint and to enable them to 
bring into the world bodily and mentally healthy 
children, all measures of prevention which concern 
the child itself have a twofold purpose — to pro- 
tect it against injurious influences and to 
strengthen its powers of resistance. This applies 
especially to those children who, tho manifest- 
ing no pronounced indication of hereditary taint, 
seem particularly endangered in consequence of 
some congenital deficiency in their powers of re- 
sistance. Because the sensory perceptions form 
the basis for all mental development it is to these 
that we must first turn our attention ; then we may 
proceed to a consideration of the care of the body, 
the development of the intellect, and the methods 
for determining the amount of progress which has 
been effected through instruction, as well as to a 
consideration of the formation of the character and 
the will. 



THE CHILDREN 229 

A. DEVELOPMENT OF SENSORY ACTIVITY 

We have now reached the point where we should 
speak of a new system of education which has at- 
tracted a great deal of attention, and which seems 
destined to produce far-reaching pedagogic 
reforms — the Montessori Method. To be precise 
we really should not designate this system as 
"new." To permit the child's propensity for 
activity to unfold itself freely and, by means of a 
special method of sense training and sense develop- 
ment, to perfect the mental capability of the child 
to its utmost, are governing purposes which long 
ago had been exprest by Seguin, who himself had 
adopted them in part from Itard. But what is 
new is the application to normal children of a 
method originally designed for the training of the 
feeble-minded and its amplification, in a manner 
which is almost a manifestation of genius, by Dr. 
Maria Montessori in Rome. 

The fundamental principle of the Montessori 
Method is the free, individual, self-development of 
the child. The method starts from the premise, 
psychologically proved to be correct, that the child 
possesses the inherent impulse to acquaint itself in 



230 CHILD TRAINING 

every way with the objects surrounding it. This 
natural impulse, through which the child is en- 
couraged to discover things for itself, must not be 
supprest. The traditional training of home and 
school restrains the child in all possible ways; it 
tells the child, "You must not do this, you must 
not do that ; now do this, and now do that. ' ' Mme. 
Montessori, on the contrary, allows the child com- 
plete freedom of action and interferes only where 
the occupational impulse of the child threatens to 
become a source of danger. The child must not 
be obliged to interrupt one occupation in order to 
take up a new one, so long as the former is able 
to hold the child's interest For as Dr. Montessori 
very correctly argues, this interest will pall of itself 
when the child has thoroughly investigated the 
object with which it is occupied, and therefore, 
a premature interruption will interfere with the 
natural spirit of investigation. 

In the public schools this principle of individu- 
alization has received consideration only through 
the organization of auxiliary classes for the less 
capable or backward children. Froebel went a 
step further and, making use of their play impulse, 
divided the children into groups which were per- 



THE CHILDREN 231 

mitted to occupy themselves now in one way and 
again in another. 

Mme. Montessori, by allowing every child to 
select its own object of occupation, and by per- 
mitting it, if it so pleases, to busy itself therewith 
the entire day, has carried the principle of in- 
dividualization to its final consummation. The 
Montessori Method therefore differs from the pre- 
vailing pedagogy in two directions — first in its 
principle of free self-development, according to 
which no pressure may be brought to bear upon 
the child to restrain its impulse for exploration; 
and secondly, in its adoption of the principle of 
the most far-reaching individualization, in conse- 
quence of which the school is composed not of 
classes nor groups but of so many individual chil- 
dren, each of whom occupies itself in accordance 
with its self-determination. Naturally we should 
expect such a school to require a very large staff of 
teachers. The contrary, however, is the case. In 
fact, teachers, in the strict sense of the word, do 
not exist, but are represented by observers. The 
latter do not instruct; the children teach them- 
selves. The teacher is supplanted by the didactic 
material, through the use of which the children 



232 CHILD TRAINING 

develop their mental powers in accordance with 
the heuristic method of searching and finding for 
themselves. The Montessori Method impresses 
rather strangely any one who has not occupied 
himself intensively with the psychology and psy- 
cho-pathology of childhood. Certainly it can in no 
way be grafted upon our present school system. 
Its general introduction in our existing schools 
would bring about a complete upheaval of our 
present methods of instruction, and, of course, we 
can not expect school boards to adopt measures of 
such sweeping significance without absolute assur- 
ance of success. A guaranty of proof of success 
can be furnished only by a direct competitive test 
between the Montessori schools and those in which 
our children are being instructed to-day. An 
experimental pedagogic competition of this kind 
certainly seems warranted, when it is considered 
that psychically inferior children who have been 
instructed, or, rather, have taught themselves 
according to the Montessori Method, have been 
able to compete on an even basis with normal school 
children of their own age, and that normal chil- 
dren of the Montessori school have been able to 
compete with older children from other schools. 



THE CHILDREN 233 

My own observations in Rome have convinced me 
that the Montessori Method is more efficient than 
the pedagogy which has been transmitted to us 
by preceding generations. But whether the Mon- 
tessori Method will give the children a permanent 
advantage in later life can not at present be 
decided. To me it seems the Montessori Method 
strains the children less, that it does not over- 
burden them, and that, therefore, it preserves them 
from premature exhaustion of nerve force, such 
as results not only from excessive requirements and 
exactions but also from improper methods of in- 
struction and training. At any rate the Mon- 
tessori Method has proved that the more any 
pedagogy is capable of adapting itself to the 
nature of the child, the greater will be its efficiency. 
Its superiority is due entirely to the fact that 
Mme. Montessori bases her method upon the pro- 
ducts of physiological and pathological psychology 
of childhood, which she, first as a physician and 
then as a pedagog, never wearied of carefully 
studying. The principles according to which the 
child mind develops under normal and patho- 
logical conditions, the manner in which the mental 
capabilities are determined, how progress is esti- 



234 CHILD TRAINING 

mated, and how health may be distinguished from 
disease, will be set forth in the second part of 
this book. 

To my mind a knowledge of the psychology of 
childhood is of fundamental importance for all 
pedagogic efforts, and it is for this reason that I 
have placed this chapter at the head of my peda- 
gogic disquisitions. I can not entirely agree with 
those who say the study of child psychology 
diminishes the sympathy of the average pedagog 
for the children entrusted to his care. It might 
with equal justice be maintained that the average 
physician loses compassion for his patients because 
the object of his studies is the human being. Cer- 
tainly this is so only in exceptional instances ; or, 
what is probably more correct, this compassion 
never existed. In my opinion the sympathies and 
vocational interest of the teacher will not only not 
suffer in consequence of the exact observation and 
experimental study of child psychology, but, on 
the contrary, will be fortified and augmented. For 
here also Mme. de Stael's words. Tout com- 
prendre, c'est tout pardonner may well be ap- 
plied. He who does not understand the mind of 
the child easily becomes over-exacting when he 



THE CHILDREN 235 

meets with any opposition, because he ascribes that 
opposition to obstinacy and malevolence, whereas 
a knowledge of psychology would teach that it is 
often dependent upon natural causes and, there- 
fore, calls for sympathy rather than severity. 

In this connection I would state that the demand 
for reform in our present method of education 
seems to permeate the entire atmosphere. I have 
before me the book of Edmond Holmes, "What is 
and What Might Be." Without knowing Dr. 
Montessori and without having heard of her work. 
Holmes in London has arrived at conclusions very 
similar to those of the founder of the "Casa dei 
Bambini" in Rome. He, too, is an advocate of 
free self -development of the child, and of the widest 
individualization. Holmes differentiates six natu- 
ral impulses or instincts, as follows : 

1. The child's instinctive desire to enter into 
communion with the persons about it, to talk to 
them, to tell them what it has done, seen, felt, 
thought, and to hear what they have to tell it. 
This he calls the communicative instinct. 

2. The tendency of the child to play the role 
of hero, fairy prince, adventurer, giant, or dwarf. 
This he calls the dramatic instinct. 



236 CHILD TRAINING 

3. The desire of the child to give visible expres- 
sion, through drawing, painting or plastic imita- 
tion, to the pictures which fill its imagination — 
the artistic instinct. 

4. The impulse of the child to reproduce melo- 
dies by singing and to execute their corresponding 
rhythmical movements by dancing — the musical 
instinct. 

5. The desire of the child to know the why and 
wherefore, the reason and purpose, of things — the 
inquisitive instinct. 

6. The impulse of the child to pull apart things 
in order to reconstruct them — the constructive 
instinct. 

Of these, Holmes classes the first two as sym- 
pathetic instincts, the next two as esthetic in- 
stincts, and the last two as scientific instincts. 
Upon the basis of these natural impulses is built 
the mental development of the child. 

In "What Is" Holmes, by examples taken from 
actual life, shows the consequences that will ensue 
when the natural impulses of the child are re- 
pressed or abused. In "What Might Be" he intro- 
duces to us Egeria, a teacher in a school in Utopia, 
all of whose efforts are directed toward allowing 



THE CHILDREN 237 

the natural impulses of the child to develop them- 
selves in an unhampered way. For the children 
of Egeria's school, there exists neither punishment 
nor reward. Notwithstanding that they are sub- 
jected to no constraint of any kind, that no threat 
of punishment frightens nor intimidates them, no 
promise of reward allures them nor arouses their 
ardor, the children thrive and preserve most model 
discipline. Mental cripples who by rote have 
acquired a mass of undigested knowledge and who, 
through the principle of punishment and reward, 
have been trained to a "mechanical obedience" — 
these are the fruits of the school "as it is." 
Mentally alert children, full of live interest in the 
things which surround them, not crammed with 
mere memory knowledge, but equipped with that 
independence of thought and judgment which at 
the given moment is able quietly to reveal itself, 
and which through free obedience makes the call 
of unlovely egotism subordinate to the interests of 
the many — these are the fruits of the school "as 
it might be." Mr. Holmes has told me his Egeria 
and his Utopia were not, as I assumed them to be, 
the products of his imagination. Both teacher and 
school were the actualities of an English village. 



238 CHILD TRAINING 

and in his book he informs us that the type of 
education which flourished in the atmosphere of 
Utopia developed young men and women of 
''activity, versatility, imaginative sympathy, a 
wide and free outlook, self-forgetfulness, charm of 
manner and joy of heart." Whoever has seen a 
class of Montessori infants would regard those 
words as a forecast of what lay in store for them. 

Only the necessity for reform in our present 
method of instruction and education, the dissatis- 
faction with the ruling organization of our schools, 
can explain the remarkable concordance of two 
persons who have independently arrived at the 
same results. I have considered it best to evolve 
the basic thoughts which govern the Montessori 
method in their mutual relationship, in order to 
facilitate a comprehension of the individual points 
as they will be considered in other chapters. 

The point of greatest importance in the Mon- 
tessori method is the development of sensory 
activity. For this an extensive teaching material 
is necessary, consisting of wooden blocks of various 
form and size, hard and soft objects with rough 
and smooth surface, liquids of various degrees of 
temperature, colored objects and sounding ones. 



THE CHILDREN 239 

convexly cut letters and numbers, tests for taste 
and smell, etc. To these should be added a variety 
of natural objects, such as grains of cereals, 
flowers, minerals, etc. The fundamental idea of 
this teaching material is derived from Seguin, who 
made use of it only for the instruction of the 
feeble-minded. Following his example, other 
remedial pedagogs have also made use of it with 
success, but the credit for having recognized the 
merits of this material in the instruction of normal 
children is due exclusively to Mme. Montessori. 

It is most interesting to observe the Montessori 
children while they are working and giving free 
expression to their instinct for investigation. 
Blindfolded, they endeavor, through touch alone, 
for instance, to determine of what material a 
particular object is made. From its form, size, 
consistency, regularity or irregularity of surface 
they form an idea, without seeing the object, as 
to whether it is an apple, a piece of bread, sand- 
paper, wool or something else. When the eyes 
are uncovered and they are able to corroborate 
their diagnosis, their pleasure is marked; if, on 
the contrary, they have mistaken the nature of 
the object before them, the investigation of its 



240 CHILD TRAINING 

differentiating qualities begins anew. With in- 
exhaustible ardor, the children study their in- 
structional material, take the objects apart, dissect 
them, put them together again, select certain colors 
and shades, concentrate their attention upon certain 
tones, instruct themselves concerning the origin and 
purpose of the various objects, systematically 
arrange letters and numbers, practise the recog- 
nition of different grades of temperature, and of 
differences in olfactory and gustatory qualities. In 
this manner, by means of sensory perceptions, they 
extend the circle of their ideas, which, as memory- 
pictures, become all the more fixt the more the 
children have been left undisturbed in the exercise 
of their investigational trend. Since normal chil- 
dren, however, manifest various grades of talent, 
assiduity and energy, it can not be expected that 
the Montessori Method, even when practised under 
expert supervision, will produce equally favorable 
results in all children. But it becomes clear that 
even the weaker children are incited to discover 
for themselves, when we remember that in the 
Montessori Method the starting point is the more 
or less innate desire of every healthy child for 
activity and investigation, that the teaching 





Courtesy ot Dr. Maria Montessori. 

MoNTESsoRi Children at Work 



THE CHILDREN 241 

material in itself serves to show the child whether 
its observations have been correctly made, and that 
the findings of each child control to some extent 
those of its comrades. Successful results may be 
delayed in weaker children but ultimately will 
be attained as certainly as in the more talented 
children. 

What, in my opinion, emphasized the superiority 
of the Montessori Method is the simultaneous 
development of the attention and of the sensory 
activities. By means of this method the sense that 
is most susceptible to stimulation can be easily 
determined. The child's free and independent 
selection of those objects of the didactic material 
which most appeal to it indicates the direction in 
which its capabilities or endowments must lie. 

When the sense which is best developed has been 
determined and to a certain extent exercised, it 
may be persistently excited by more and more 
complicated stimuli, which in time will simul- 
taneously incite activity in other sensory spheres. 
The attention, which tends especially in one direc- 
tion or another, is thereby evoked for other sensory 
fields as well. This is shown by the manner in 
which the sense of touch may be exercised without 



242 CHILD TRAINING 

the aid of vision. In a similar way the sense of 
smell and the sense of taste may be trained by 
extending the influence of those of sight and 
hearing. 

Let me say again the method of developing the 
sensory activities and the attention by the aid of 
objective demonstration is by no means new. The 
only things new about it are its application to 
normal children and the heuristic principle of self- 
discovery. To the latter, above all else, must be 
attributed the fact that the children, without a 
teacher's guidance, are actually able mentally to 
assimilate the sensory impressions they receive. 
The various objects from which the child may 
freely select what it will, represent for it just so 
many motives for its actions. While in the ordi- 
nary course the impressions derived through exer- 
cise of the senses remain isolated in the conscious- 
ness of the child, the "method of choice" which 
Dr. Montessori employs, but which has also been 
advocated by Heller, Weygant, Strohmeyer, and 
others, encourages the child from the very be- 
ginning to compare and to differentiate the 
objects which it selects. In those children who 
are less liberally endowed or who have slight sen- 



THE CHILDREN 243 

sory defects (visual disturbances, auditory de- 
ficiencies, etc.), the most dissimilar impressions at 
first flow together into an indeterminate whole. 
Only through the opportunity which is given them 
to examine minutely the objects from which a 
choice is to be made according to form, consistency, 
color, odor, etc., do they become enabled to assimi- 
late sensory perceptions, which thereafter not only 
remain fixt in the memory, but also become apper- 
ceptively combined. 

B. BODILY DEVELOPMENT 

On account of the extreme importance of the 
physical care of the child in the proper develop- 
ment of its mental function, it would be a mistake 
not to give due consideration to such physical care 
in a work, dealing as this does, with the education 
of all grades of normal and abnormal children from 
the comprehensive view-point of physiological and 
pathological psychology. 

In considering the child's physical care we find 
it necessary once more to emphasize the teaching 
that the pupil should be restrained as little as 
possible and should be allowed to develop freely 
in accordance with his innate impulses and in- 



244 CHILD TRAINING 

stincts. Children, for example, have no desire for 
stimulants, such as alcohol, tobacco, etc. — as is 
shown by the fact that when such stimulants are 
used for the first time the children react to them 
in a manner which clearly demonstrates their 
nature has been violated. Only gradually and in 
consequence of habit is this antipathy counteracted. 
Hence we recognize the principle, which hardly 
requires elucidation, that stimulants must be 
banished from the dietary of all children and that 
inattention to this prophylactic measure is fol- 
lowed, sooner or later, by calamitous results. 

No definite rules can be established concerning 
food and dietetics in general. What benefits one 
child may be harmful to another. The nutrition 
of the child differs from that of the adult. In the 
adult it is sufficient if the nitrogenous balance of 
the organism be maintained, but in order that 
the child's growth and development may proceed 
in a normal manner, and that growth may be 
facilitated, it is essential that the intake exceed 
the outgo. A child that throws off as many meta- 
bolic products as it takes in can not flourish; and 
when the outgo exceeds the intake, the child will 
be under-nourished and waste away. Such deficit 



THE CHILDREN 245 

may be the result of certain disorders of metab- 
olism, but this is not the proper place to give 
attention to them. Pedagogy is concerned only 
with that form of under-nourishment which appears 
in healthy children as a result of their taking in- 
sufficient or improper food. Every kind of 
nourishment that does not agree with the child 
must be called improper. Whether the child should 
be forced to eat food for which it has an aversion 
is quite another matter. Certainly, since pala- 
tability stimulates the digestive secretions and 
thereby favors assimilation, while aversion impairs 
the digestion of food, children should not be coerced 
to eat food against which their nature rebels. On 
the other hand, many parents are at fault when 
they allow the child's caprice to control its diet. 
Generally speaking, a child must learn to eat all 
wholesome foods and must not be permitted to 
foster little food antipathies which, if not sup- 
prest, may easily develop into hypochondriacal 
obsessions. 

Nourishment is inadequate when the food con- 
tains too little nitrogenous material (albumin), 
too little fat, or too few carbohydrates, or when any 
of these three main materials is entirely lacking. 



246 CHILD TRAINING 

On the average the adult requires about twenty- 
grams of fat, one hundred and forty grams 
of albumin and three hundred and fifty grams 
of carbohydrates, daily ; the child a smaller amount, 
in proportion to its age and weight. Knowing as 
we do the precise chemical composition of the 
various foods and their percentage of albumin, fat 
and carbohydrates, it is not difficult to determine 
whether a certain diet contains the proper pro- 
portion of these basic nutritional substances. A 
point not to be forgotten is that the nitrogenous 
material of vegetables (plant albumin) makes 
greater demands upon the digestive apparatus 
than does the albumin contained in meat, inasmuch 
as a small meal of meat is sufficient to furnish the 
same amount of nitrogen as a larger one of 
vegetables. 

Chronic malnutrition hinders the development of 
both mind and body. A far-reaching influence is 
exerted therefore, by those benevolent societies 
whose purpose is not only to aid children of the 
poor in obtaining ample and proper nourishment 
but also to instruct the parents how they may, 
without increased expenditure and by means of 
more efficient use of various foods, prepare palatable 



THE CHILDREN 247 

meals adapted to all nutritional requirements. On 
the other hand, overfeeding is equally pernicious. 
Many parents seem to desire only that their chil- 
dren should grow fat, forgetting that obesity is by 
no means the same as health and strength, but on 
the contrary is often the explanation for indolence 
and self-indulgence in children. Overfed children, 
who do not know what hunger is, become more 
and more finical, and develop a repugnance for 
all plain and simple foods. This aversion is essen- 
tially the expression of caprice and a disordered 
stomach. The principle that children should be 
given all possible freedom in following their 
material impulses and instincts of course applies 
to healthy children only. The beneficent estab- 
lishment of school physicians has made it possible 
constantly to observe the bodily health of the 
children and thus to recognize very early those 
defects which, when allowed to persist, constitute 
an ever-growing menace to the child's intellectual 
welfare. Of course, I am referring here to those 
states of chronic malnutrition, adenoid vegetations, 
thyroid hypertrophy, defective hearing, nervous 
irritability, etc., which have already been men- 
tioned. The change which may be effected in the 



248 CHILD TRAINING 

psychic behavior of children having those defects, 
by judicious prophylactic measures often seems 
almost miraculous. Every neurologist will sub- 
scribe to the statement that not the least of the 
measures which are of prophylactic value in the 
training of those children who attract attention on 
account of any peculiarity is their removal from 
parental control. If we consider the extraordinary 
significance of hereditary influence, and the fact 
that those unfavorable factors which during em- 
bryonal development have been the cause of injury 
to the health of the child frequently remain active 
during the entire period of its training, we often 
can not but consider the retention of "atypical" 
children in their own homes a serious menace to 
their future health. No more need be said to 
prove that parents suffering from nervousness, and 
more especially those who are alcoholic, are not 
the proper guardians for children, who are normal, 
and certainly not for those who are in any way 
abnormal and who, through imitation, are likely 
to acquire morbid peculiarities which will seriously 
complicate their original defective state. For the 
parents as well as for the children, life in such 
unhealthy environment consists of an uninterrupted 



THE CHILDREN 249 

round of excitement. From this condition are 
often developed those peculiar nervous states 
which, so long as the children are allowed to 
occupy the parental home, are the bane of all 
medical and pedagogical efforts. Frequently all 
that is required to effect a decided improvement is 
removal of the children from these surroundings, 
and the earlier this is brought about the greater 
the prospect of permanent success. But it is 
wrong even for healthy parents to assume the 
training of their atypical children, since, as a rule, 
they lack the requisite understanding of their 
peculiarities, often cater to their most unreasonable 
desires, and consequently, tho with the best 
intentions, do many things which are prejudicial 
to the children's health. 

That children should spend much of their time 
in the open air is generally understood. "While 
this presents no difficulty to families living in the 
country, outdoor life is almost impossible for the 
inhabitants of the overpopulated quarters of a 
large city. The reconstructive value of walking 
and playing in dusty and dirty city streets is 
certainly problematical. For that reason we should 
appreciate all the more those public and private 



250 CHILD TRAINING 

charitable efforts which aim to give the children 
of the city's poor adequate seasonable outings in 
the country and at the seashore. Of equal im- 
portance for the child's welfare is cleanliness 
through frequent bathing. Baths, moreover, serve 
as a means of strengthening the general consti- 
tution, and here we must recognize the value of 
the use of cold water. Of course, its indiscriminate 
use, more particularly in the manner advocated by 
the various nature-cure faddists, has led to many 
excesses, and continuous so-called "hardening" 
procedures are not infrequently the cause of 
decided conditions of nervousness. They are 
especially harmful to children, particularly the 
weak and anemic. On the other hand, when carried 
out systematically and with proper regard for 
individual conditions and singularities, "harden- 
ing" procedures, through habituating the organism 
to sudden changes of temperature, constitute one 
of the most important measures of prophylactic 
training that we possess. 

In connection with this, also, we find nature an 
ideal preceptor. It is the custom of the gypsies to 
bathe their new-born babes, even in winter, in the 
nearest stream or lake ; the Patagonians allow their 



THE CHILDREN 251 

children to grow up with scarcely any protection 
against the great cold of the climate in which they 
live. In both these instances we are dealing with 
people living more or less in a state of nature — 
not with emolliated people who desire to retrieve 
the vigor they have lost. Only with loss of health 
or life could we enervated products of modern 
civilization follow their example. The deleterious 
effects of intense climatic changes can be under- 
stood only by those who possess inherently resist- 
ant bodies or who have been constantly exposed to 
such conditions from birth. Therefore all harden- 
ing procedures should be carried out with caution, 
and a warning should be sounded against that 
fanaticism which by resorting to the use of cold 
water alone would attempt to accomplish hurriedly 
what really can be brought about solely by means 
of gradual adaptation and with the aid of certain 
other factors. 

Gymnastic exercises, when properly planned and 
systematically used, are of extraordinary benefit in 
the development of mind and body, but they may 
be most detrimental if employed in excess and 
without discrimination. In accordance with the 
principle Mens sana in corpore sano, both the 



252 CHILD TRAINING 

mind and the body should be trained simul- 
taneously. At first all those movements of muscles 
and joints which are executed by the child with 
difficulty should be practised separately. In many 
instances the child's attention and will are so 
undeveloped that the desired movements can not 
be actively produced. In such cases passive move- 
ments must be depended upon to prepare the path 
for the active ones. Passive movements become 
transformed into active ones as soon as the child 
endeavors to assist in producing them by its own 
muscular effort. Ultimately the child develops the 
ability to reproduce actively the passive movements 
to which it has become accustomed, and, with the 
requisite help, to carry out other active move- 
ments which it had not previously been prepared 
for by passive exercise. 

The physiological importance of these movement 
exercises is that through them are called into being 
those concepts which pertain to the position and 
movement of one's own limbs. It is this group of 
concepts which is of the highest significance in the 
development of consciousness. All other sensory 
impressions and their dependent concepts are un- 
stable, while this group of impressions alone 



THE CHILDREN 253 

possesses the character of constancy. The sensory 
impressions which the child receives from its own 
body remain the same no matter how much the 
surroundings of the child change. The child in 
time becomes conscious of the execution of the 
movements produced in its joints and muscles, and 
conceives the idea of being able to produce those 
movements voluntarily. In this manner the per- 
manent group of concepts which relate to one's 
own body is perceived to be dependent upon one's 
own will, and the consciousness of self arises. 

In still another direction are gymnastic exer- 
cises of significance for the mental development of 
the child. The time that is to intervene between 
one exercise and the following one must not be left 
to chance, but must be regulated from the begin- 
ning by a certain tempo or rhythm. Let us assume 
that two simple movements, as, for example, flexion 
and extension of the arm, are repeated at precisely 
the same intervals of time. Undoubtedly through 
the regular alternation of these movements a close 
relationship becomes established between them, so 
that after the execution of one the occurrence of 
the other will be anticipated. This state of expec- 
tation becomes one of realization as soon as the 



254 CHILD TRAINING 

correlative second movement is actually carried out. 

In this instance, according to Wundt, we are 
dealing with peculiar states of consciousness which 
are closely allied to the process of apperception. 
In the instance cited, the child's attention is 
aroused with recurring reciprocity, the execution 
of one movement uniting with the memory-picture 
of the other, so that the concept of the one and the 
concept of the other movement alternately enter 
the fixation point of consciousness. Hence there 
is reason for maintaining that the development of 
the attention will be encouraged to a high degree 
through such coordinatory exercises. Altho De 
Moor and others have laid stress upon the value of 
accompanying rhythmical exercises by music, it 
would appear, from the experience of Dr. Mon- 
tessori, that in arrhythmical gymnastics no musical 
instruments should be used, but the children should 
be taught to accompany the exercises by song. 

Observation of the normal child teaches us that 
walking is learned gradually. Before being able to 
walk, the child must have gathered a certain sum 
of experiences, at first through raising itself alone 
and later through moving its body forward in a 
creeping position. These experiences are utilized 



THE CHILDREN 255 

practically by the child as soon as it has acquired 
the power to execute the coordinated movements 
of flexion and extension of the lower extremities 
that correspond to taking the first steps. Above 
all, however, the child must first have acquired the 
sense of orientation in space, for otherwise it would 
not be able to direct its movements toward a 
specific object. In the normal child, therefore, 
learning to walk must not be regarded merely as 
an automatic act governed by commensurate 
development of the motor centers and the peri- 
pheral motor nerves ; indeed, we must regard it as 
a conscious process, one that would be impossible 
were direct experience lacking. In order to en- 
courage independent attempts at walking, special 
apparatus have been devised, that enable the child 
to maifitain the upright posture and in a measure 
impel it to keep moving forward. Such walking 
cribs are, however, of doubtful advantage. The 
chief objections to their use is that they make it 
unnecessary for the child to attempt to compensate 
every disturbance of equilibrium by proper mus- 
cular exertion, altho such attempts are of the 
greatest importance for the bodily and mental 
development of the child. That is why children 



256 CHILD TRAINING 

who have learned to walk perfectly in the walking 
crib often show marked unsteadiness of gait when 
required to walk unaided. Here is a better way 
of teaching the child to walk than by the use of 
an apparatus : Let one person hold it in an upright 
posture by its hands to give it confidence, and then 
gradually draw it forward while another person 
grasps the feet of the child and moves them to 
carry out the passive coordinatory movements 
which correspond to the walking steps. This nat- 
ural method has a great advantage over all ap- 
paratus in that it permits the upright posture to 
be supported and the step movement to be modified 
in accordance with the greater independence and 
self-reliance which the child must gradually ac- 
quire. By systematic practise the child becomes 
accustomed to maintaining the upright posture 
without extraneous aid and to cariying out co- 
ordinated stepping movements. These movements, 
moreover, should be exercised by means of cor- 
responding passive movements, carried out while 
the child is lying down, until they have been trans- 
formed into automatic acts. 

For larger children the value of athletic sports 
of various kinds should not be underestimated. 



THE CHILDREN 257 

Baseball, swimming, rowing, bicycle riding, long 
tramps, etc., give the children opportunity to test 
and to develop their strength in free competition 
with others. An emphatic protest must be entered, 
however, against every excess into which ambitious 
natures may be led. In all sport and gymnastic 
exercises careful individual attention must be 
given to the greater or less resisting powers of the 
heart. 

Proper gymnastic instruction is of great import- 
ance in physical training, A large number of 
children acting under the same orders and gov- 
erned by the same rules become imbued with a 
feeling of homogeneity which can not be instilled 
so thoroughly in any other way. Various writers 
have called attention to the special value of 
Swedish exercises in the physical and mental 
development of defective children. It is a fact 
that such opposed movements are well adapted to 
overcoming the awkwardness that is present in 
very many feeble-minded children. But the em- 
ployment of Swedish movements alone (to the 
exclusion of the gymnastics with apparatus) is by 
no means desirable. Dubois Reymond was the 
earliest and most ardent supporter of the German 



258 CHILD TRAINING 

"Turnen" as opposed to Swedish gymnastics, and 
he clearly showed that the former makes far 
greater demands upon the self -activity of the child ; 
certainly the Swedish movements do not succeed in 
bringing into play that activity of the child's 
will which is so desirable, while gymnastics with 
apparatus not only exercise the muscles of the body 
but help to train the coordinatory power more 
thoroughly than any system of mechanical exer- 
cises. In all gymnastics, attention must be paid 
to the uniform drilling of all groups of muscles, 
so that the pupil may eventually gain complete 
control over his entire motor apparatus. Every 
movement should be executed according to a certain 
time measure, best indicated by counting aloud. 
True, this is possible only when the teacher limits 
his instruction to certain definite movements. 

Fatigue measurements, made by different ob- 
servers in different ways, have demonstrated that 
the fatigue which ensues upon gymnastic exercises 
is relatively pronounced. It has long been known 
that the degree of fatigue which pupils show after 
such exercise is greater than that which follows 
any kind of mental work. This fact has a double 
significance. First, it proves erroneous the view, 



THE CHILDREN 259 

so widely accepted, that mental fatigue may be 
relieved by physical exercise, and that physical 
fatigue may be overcome by mental activity. 
Gymnastic work, after mental fatigue due to study, 
represents relaxation just as little as study after 
gymnastic exertion signifies recuperation. When 
children — and herein they do not differ from adults 
— are tired, they require rest and not a change of 
activity. Secondly, the fact mentioned enables us 
to recognize the necessity for individualization even 
in physical exercise. Under certain conditions we 
must go so far as to exclude weak or very nervous 
children entirely from gymnasium work, or to give 
them the very lightest exercise. Which of the 
children, for hygienic reasons, are to receive only 
a restricted physical training or none at all, is a 
question that must, of course, be left entirely to 
the decision of the physician. In coming to a con- 
clusion, however, the latter should not lose sight 
of the fact that gymnasium work is of particular 
effectiveness in augmenting the physical skill, the 
courage and the self-confidence of the child, and 
therefore only in exceptional instances should the 
use of this important means of training be re- 
nounced. For reasons already discust, pupils 



260 CHILD TRAINING 

should not be permitted to go into the gymnasium 
for work until rested, nor should they be allowed 
to undertake any mental or other physical work 
immediately after such exercises. Our prophy- 
lactic task of physical training would be badly 
fulfilled were we to allow it to produce disturbances 
of the general health through failing to take into 
consideration the state of fatigue. 

It is also of great importance that we should 
understand correctly the states of fear not in- 
frequently revealed when children are engaged in 
exercises upon gymnastic apparatus. These states 
of fear or fright are often found to be due entirely 
to lack of self-confidence, and in that case it is the 
teacher's task to convince the pupil that all that 
is required in order to enable him to carry out the 
work allotted to him is a certain exercise of the 
will. Entirely diffe'rent, however, are those 
paroxysms of fear which occasionally occur under 
the same conditions but which can easily be recog- 
nized as pathological. Under no circumstances 
should any form of coercion be used with children 
so afflicted. I have seen serious functional damage 
to the nervous system produced through failure to 
follow this rule. The essence of prophylactic 



THE CHILDREN 261 

training consists in treating atypical children differ- 
ently from normal children, and not encouraging 
them to activities for which they are physically or 
mentally unfitted. 

Special consideration should he given to a 
matter that up to the present has not had suffi- 
cient pedagogic attention. I refer to the execu- 
tion of eurythmic movements. Coordination, of 
course, is the basis of these movements, and it 
has always been part of child training to teach 
children to coordinate their muscles properly by 
means of repeated exercise so that, finally, the 
entire motor apparatus will be volitionally con- 
trolled, and all inappropriate movements auto- 
matically eliminated. Eurythmy, however, is more 
than coordination. Coordination relates but to 
the physiological bearing of the mechanism of 
movements. Eurythmy lays stress, in addition, 
upon the esthetic side — movements are to be not 
only correct, adjusted and purposeful, but also 
beauteous. They should express the existence of 
harmonic equilibrium; of entire concord between 
each part and the whole. The principles of 
eurythmy have been systematized by Jacques 
Dalcroze. The basis of the Dalcroze method, as 



262 CHILD TRAINING 

well as of other ones having the same purpose in 
view, can be nothing more than muscular coordina- 
tion. 

Before going further, let us see what coordina- 
tion really is; and how coordination may be 
transformed into eurythmy. No proof is neces- 
sary to show that the execution of movements 
which are appropriate and at the same time grace- 
ful in form presupposes complete control of the 
motor mechanism of the body. Symmetry of the 
dance, consonance of song, harmony in speech, 
in short the beauteous, graceful relations of the 
parts to the whole when in motion, are possible 
only when long practise has so adjusted the asso- 
ciated tracts of the nervous system that without 
the aid of volition, entirely reflexly, all muscular 
movements become not only coordinated but also 
eurythmic. 

Every normal individual in time learns how 
to use his muscles correctly and determinedly, 
Speaking, writing, manual skill are, as I have ex- 
plained elsewhere, nothing else than psycho-phy- 
sical capabilities produced by the cooperation of 
volitional impulses and the motor tension pri- 
marily present in the germ plasm. Animals also 



THE CHILDREN 263 

carry out purposeful movements, learning to walk, 
to find their nourishment, to defend themselves 
against their enemies, etc., yet with them it prob- 
ably never is a question of the execution of voli- 
tional, purposeful acts, but always of instinctive 
impulses. The perfection to which coordination 
may be developed in man is best noted in the 
skilled pianist, who has each smallest muscle group 
of each hand under separate and perfect control. 
One piano virtuoso among my acquaintances has 
this control developed to such an extent that he 
is able to bring each group of small muscles of 
either hand into a state of tremor and to regulate 
the oscillations to a certain number per second 
and with a certain predetermined rhythm. 

The motor tract, beginning with the large 
ganglion cells of the central convolutions, takes 
its course as the pyramidal fibers to the cells of 
the anterior horns of the spinal cord or to those 
parts of the brain which are their functional 
analogs. Immediately in front of these cells the 
pyramidal fibers terminate as end trees or den- 
drites. The second or peripheral neuron, reach- 
ing out to the muscular fiber itself, begins with 
these cells of the anterior horns. There can be 



264 CHILD TRAINING 

no doubt that the various parts of nerve tracts 
having the same function are continuously asso- 
ciated. At any rate, the path from the brain 
cortex to the peripheral nerves, upon which the 
formations serving the production of movement 
may be influenced, is a long one. These forma- 
tions are not only the muscles, bones and joints, 
but also those cells and fibers in the brain cortex 
that have associative functions to fulfil, as well 
as the numerous auxiliary mechanisms for the 
production of even the most simple movements. 
So far as the arrangement of the joints, bones, and 
muscles will permit, we can move certain parts of 
the body in any desired direction. Course, 
rapidity, and force of such movements are vari- 
able. More detailed execution results, indepen- 
dently of our will, from the use of a larger num- 
ber of muscles, each one of which must be in- 
nervated in a certain order and at a definite 
moment, to continue for a certain length of time 
and with a certain force. It may be said we 
incite . to action an unknown apparatus, which 
then carries out our desire. We can not produce 
contractions of individual muscles; but under the 
influence of sensory perceptions, ideas, and voli- 



THE CHILDREN 265 

tional impulses, we merely give the impetus to a 
change in position of certain parts of the body. 
In man there are, upon the surface of the brain, 
numerous adjoining foci to which is confided the 
execution of the various individual motor tasks 
and which carry them out partly directly, partly 
by aid of subcortical mechanisms. 

Voluntary movements are extraordinarily di- 
verse. Many of them can be executed by an adult 
person without preparation; others must first be 
taught. The latter include the movements which 
are newly acquired by the individual, as, for in- 
stance, piano playing, and others which have been 
performed by innumerable antecedent generations 
that have, so to say, transmitted an aptitude for 
their execution to the new-born child; these, for 
instance, are walking, writing, speaking, etc. 
Just as there are many transitional forms between 
one class of voluntary movements and another, so 
also there exist numerous transitions between the 
class of voluntary movements last mentioned and 
those involuntary ones that the child uses on 
coming into the world and which are partly auto- 
matic, partly reflex in nature — for instance, 
breathing and sucking. Of the nature of these 



266 CHILD TRAINING 

movements, however, there may be various inter- 
pretations. Nor do we know whether in all in- 
stances coordination is effected according to a 
uniform principle. In the life of every human 
being the conversion of reflex and automatic acts 
and of complicated voluntary movements is con- 
stantly taking place. An accomplishment acquired 
by means of the utmost care and attention is 
carried out later of itself, like the simplest volun- 
tary movement, in an orderly and precise manner, 
whenever the will demands. How does this come 
about? By aid of the sensory perception under 
constant control of consciousness, the individual 
movements are first made to follow one another 
slowly and deliberately. When this has been 
done frequently enough one movement will follow 
a preceding one involuntarily, and finally the 
entire action will take place rapidly without any 
thought or consideration for the kind or extent of 
the single movements. The cardinal question is. 
How does this conversion take place, and how is 
the regulation of complicated reflexes effected? 

Certain facts are known. There are in the 
central nervous system certain locations from 
which these reflexes, the automatic and a series of 



THE CHILDREN 267 

volitional movements hereditarily transmitted, can 
be incited to precise and coordinated action. 
These locations or centers may be peripherally or 
centrally stimulated and such stimulation may be 
due to causes arising outside or inside of the body. 
Just how the coordination is brought about is not 
yet known. Two possibilities seem to exist. As 
a result of frequent repetition of certain move- 
ments, certain cells and tracts are used so often, 
their defenses against innervations are so much 
weakened, that finally a certain stimulus will 
cause the resultant excitation to follow the same 
path in every instance. But how can we explain 
the adaptation to the variation of stimulus that 
occurs during a movement? To answer this, the 
second possibility must be thought of, viz., that 
the innervation just mentioned may be received 
through centripetal excitations from the periphery. 
Numerous animal experiments make this seem very 
probable. Through section of the posterior roots 
of the spinal nerves in frogs, dogs and monkeys, 
there have been caused marked disturbances of 
the regulated reflexes as well as of certain kinds 
of voluntary movements, such as jumping and 
running. The result of such root section was 



268 CHILD TRAINING 

ataxia — a state in which certain parts of the body 
can no longer be moved to a certain point with 
the accuracy and aimfulness desired, but, owing 
to faulty innervation of the active muscles them- 
selves and of their antagonists, reach their destina- 
tion by useless deviations. The muscles used for the 
really voluntary movements receive a certain cor- 
relation in the brain cortex itself. Experimental 
electrical stimulation of the brain has shown that 
only composite movements can be elicited from the 
brain cortex and never can individual muscles be 
incited to contraction. A further conjunction of 
certain muscles for definite movements is pro- 
duced by the spatial allocation of the anterior 
horn cells and their root fibers. These few facts 
represent practically all our definite knowledge 
regarding pure motor coordination. 

What influence then do centripetal stimuli exert 
upon the course of our voluntary innervation? 
In order to answer this question two kinds of 
such stimuli must be differentiated — those that 
cause sensory perceptions, and those that reveal 
their effect without passing the threshold of con- 
sciousness. Yet it is most difScult really to keep 
these two apart, for the threshold of our conscious- 



THE CHILDREN 269 

ness varies markedly with the state of our atten- 
tion, and centripetal impressions may produce sen- 
sory perceptions and motor effects at one and the 
same time, and yet the two may not be identical. 
Certainly numerous sensory impressions exert a 
marked influence upon the more delicate adjust- 
ment of our movements. As we have already 
indicated, it is by means of the sensory impres- 
sions conveyed through the organs of special sense, 
and through the skin, muscles, joints, and bones 
that coordination is acquired. But the individual 
sensory impressions are of most unequal value for 
the coordination of acquired movements. Altho 
extended mutual substitutions and compensations 
do take place, it has been shown that where all 
the centripetal impressions from an extremity 
have been lost, preservation of the senses of sight 
and hearing did not suffice to maintain the co- 
ordination of certain movements as, for instance, 
grasping an object, running, etc. On the other 
hand, coordination is not annulled by loss of 
skin sensation alone. Laborious training enables 
us voluntarily to control the activation of many 
reflexes. Certain ones, as, for instance, the con- 
traction of the pupil when exposed to the action 



270 CHILD TRAINING 

of light, can not be supprest by any force of 
the will. But just as the child may be trained to 
control the evacuations of its body — these also 
being reflex acts — so also is it possible by force of 
will to transform other involuntary movements 
into voluntary ones; the child, for example, may 
be taught so to control its emotions, anger, pleas- 
ure, fear, etc., that they will not find reflex expres- 
sion in shrieking, facial distortion, striking, push- 
ing, etc. 

Undoubtedly, many reflex movements in them- 
selves are coordinate and purposeful, representing 
the natural and physiological expression of certain 
stimuli and excitations. Yet so long as they re- 
main unbridled and not volitionally controlled, 
they can not be termed eurythmic. 

From my explanation it must now be clear that 
there may well be coordination without eurythmy 
but there can be no eurythmy without coordina- 
tion. Eurythmy is nothing more than an artificial 
accession of natural coordination. Without this 
natural coordination there can be no eurythmy. 
When an interruption of peripheral nerve con- 
duction or central disease has disturbed the re- 
lationship between sensation and motion, defective 



THE CHILDREN 271 

coordination necessarily results. Then the affected 
groups of muscles are no longer under perfect 
voluntary control, and consequently there can no 
longer be any question of eurythmic exercise. 
Eurythmy under all circumstances presupposes 
the intactness of those coordinatory provisions 
which are to be esthetically perfectioned. Where 
the coordinatory mechanism is completely dis- 
ordered, eurythmy is entirely out of the question; 
where the disorder is a partial one, that portion 
of the motor apparatus not implicated by the 
disturbances of coordination may well be develop- 
ed through assiduous practise. In this manner 
it is even possible to a certain extent to cover 
up the defects caused by the functional failure of 
certain muscle groups by means of graceful move- 
ments of the remaining healthy ones. While every 
normal individual acquires the power of physio- 
logical muscular coordination, the movements pro- 
duced thereby are not necessarily eurythmic. The 
esthetic quality of eurythmy is added when the 
physiological stimuli and excitation which call 
into action involuntary and voluntary movements 
are conjoined with special concepts acting in part 
as inhibitory, in part as activating impulses. 



272 CHILD TRAINING 

Eurythmy, moreover, is governed entirely by 
the law of psycho-physical parallelism, certain 
notions corresponding to certain movements. 
Here, however, the notions are not only purpose- 
ful but also esthetic in character. Through con- 
stant practise in speaking, walking, dancing, etc., 
all motor impulses except those inhibitory ones 
which aim at the suppression of awkward move- 
ments, and those activating ones that tend toward 
the production of graceful movements, will become 
excluded, until in the end the muscular groups 
constantly called into action will act automatic- 
ally whenever motor impulses of any kind are 
aroused. A climax in this respect was attained 
by the classic period of antiquity. The Greeks 
realized their idea of the beautiful in part by aid 
of eurythmy, a fact all the more astonishing be- 
cause they had but the most meager notions of 
the anatomy and physiology of the human body; 
knew nothing of the law of psycho-physical par- 
allelism, and hence were obliged to base eurythmy 
entirely upon empirical observation. 

For us eurythmy does not represent knowledge 
derived from experience, but is an experimentally 
proved fact. Whenever definite ideas have be- 





EURYTHMY (Plate A). 
Correlation of Movements. 



THE CHILDREN 273 

come sufficiently anchored in the brain, they 
activate the production of definite movements and, 
after the relative nerve tracts have become prop- 
erly adjusted, the movements that were originally 
volitional and were acquired by constant practise 
gradually became automatic. This is the basic law 
upon which coordination and eurythmy depend. 

An excellent aid in the acquirement of euryth- 
mic movements is music. We all know how 
dancing, marching, etc., will cause all movements 
involuntarily to adapt themselves to its meter. 
This fact has been made a starting point for a 
special eurythmic musical method by Alys E. 
Bentley of New York. She believes, as do Holmes 
and others, that every person possesses a certain 
musical sense which needs only to be developed in 
order to produce "musical" movements — that is, 
movements that follow a certain meter, that have 
a certain harmony. Through practise and habit 
this musical sense gradually becomes an integral 
part of the individual; all these movements, so to 
say, are then characterized by a certain rhythm. 
Miss Bentley bases her method upon the law of 
progression. She proceeds from the simple to the 
more complicated, commencing with simple tones 



274 CHILD TRAINING 

produced by a flute or a violin and, later, going on 
to compound melodies. She considers the piano, 
on account of its complexity, not adapted for the 
development of musical sense. The object of her 
method is not to train children in piano playing 
or to teach them the use of any other musical 
instrument, but by the aid of music to accustom 
them to beautiful, graceful movements. In chil- 
dren a musical sense is only rudimentarily pres- 
ent; it can be developed, therefore, not by the 
aid of complicated melodies which the brain is 
unable to fixate, but only through the impressions 
derived from simple tones. 

The manner in which all the muscles of the 
body finally become correlated and act with grace 
and precision, is shown by the accompanying 
photographs of some of Miss Bentley's work. 
That such fine control of the muscular movements 
must have a vivifying influence upon the thought 
processes is clear to every one who has grasped the 
law of psycho-physical parallelism. 



THE CHILDREN 275 

C. INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 

In order that the child may become a useful 
member of human society it is not sufficient that 
it have a healthy body. It must also have a 
certain sum of knowledge and skill, by means of 
which it will ultimately be able to earn its owri, 
livelihood. The transmission of such knowledge 
and skill is the task of instruction. Intellectual 
development is inseparably linked with sensory 
activity, and is elaborated from those concepts 
which the child has already acquired through 
personal observation. The power of thought asso- 
ciation must, to a certain extent, be present, other- 
wise the psychologic basis for instruction would 
be lacking. Then, too, just as the development 
of sensor}^ activity gradually leads to development 
of the attention and the power of apperception, 
instruction must take place step by step. The 
better it adapts itself to the laws of evolution and 
progression, the more effective will it be. Herein 
lies, as I have already indicated, the secret of 
Madame Montessori's success, for her method 
keeps close to the path which nature has laid out. 

Let us first consider the manual instruction 



276 CHILD TRAINING 

which is so highly valued not only by Dr. Mon- 
tessori but by all discerning pedagogs, and which, 
in a way, represents the link between physical 
and intellectual development. Through it not 
only are the muscles of the hand brought under 
control of the will, but also a large number of 
concepts are aroused. Manual instruction in a 
measure represents an elaboration and perfection 
of gymnastic exercises. While the latter require 
the use mainly of the larger groups of muscles, 
manual training calls into play relatively small 
muscles and groups, which, however, are capable 
of the highest and most perfected activities. 

I need but refer to the well-known statement 
of Herbart, "The hand takes the place of honor 
by the side of speech in raising man above the 
animal. ' ' 

It is the hand, of course, which makes writing 
and drawing possible. Kindergarten occupations 
are closely akin to the manual training exercises, 
and both may be so combined as to constitute a 
composite entity. Hand training is brought about 
first by means of movements of the entire hand. 
These are followed by movements of the single 
fingers, these being flexed and extended. Then 



THE CHILDREN 277 

the more complicated movements, apposition of 
the thumb to the single fingers, crossing one 
finger over the other, etc., are added. Finally 
the movements which are of importance in prac- 
tical life, buttoning and unbuttoning, locking and 
unlocking with a key, drilling holes, driving nails, 
threading a needle, etc., are taught. More recently 
many physicians and pedagogs have demanded 
that the left hand be trained in the same manner 
and as thoroughly as the right. Many muscles 
of the body are used only in conjunction with 
their counterparts of the opposite side; others, 
while generally used alone, may be and frequently 
are used conjointly with their counterparts. The 
muscles always used alone are represented only 
unilaterally in the cortex, while those used con- 
jointly are bilaterally represented so that uni- 
lateral movements can be excited only from one — 
the opposite — hemisphere, while bilateral move- 
ments can be excited from either hemisphere. 
Finally, those muscles which are sometimes used 
alone and at other times conjointly are connected 
with both hemispheres, but are generally excited 
from only one — the opposite hemisphere. 

This fact, first advanced as a hypothesis, by 



278 CHILD TRAINING 

Broadbent, would explain why the skilled train- 
ing of one hand for certain movements will simul- 
taneously, to a certain degree, develop in the 
other hand the ability to perform these same 
movements; but in order that the latter should 
acquire the same degree of skill as the one speci- 
ally trained, it also must have special training. 
Theoretically this would seem to be possible, but 
as a matter of fact practically all attempts to 
produce ambidexterity in children have resulted 
in failure. Gulick, than whom no one has had 
more experience in the physical training of chil- 
dren, says: '*I have repeatedly endeavored to 
train the left side of the body to throw a ball 
as readily as does the right hand; but even with 
the best training the ordinary man will still throw 
with the left hand in the same way as a woman 
does with her right hand." 

Considering the difficulties encountered in such 
bilateral training, it does not seem that the effort, 
even if we could succeed, would be worth while. 
The only pedagogic value attached to training 
the left hand to do the same work as the right 
is that such training produces increased acuity of 
attention. Careful self-observation will show that 



THE CHILDREN 279 

the left hand, when executing movements which 
are habitually carried out by the right, usually 
works in the opposite direction. This explains 
the production of so-called mirror writing. "When 
the child, using its left hand to reproduce writing 
movements it has learned to carry out with its 
right hand, produces mirror writing, this is to be 
regarded merely as proof that the child in no 
way opposes the original tendency toward a sym- 
metrical repetition of the right-handed movements. 
Such opposition could exist only in the presence 
of a higher degree of attention than we have a 
right to assume exists in younger or physically 
deficient children. Those children who when 
writing with the left hand do not produce mirror 
writing, clearly have attained the power of dis- 
tinctly visualizing each written character, and 
then through concentration of attention carrying 
out the writing movements in accordance with 
such mental pictures. 

"When the child, in the course of its instruction, 
has attained sufficient manual dexterity, the con- 
struction of simple objects of clay, pasteboard 
and wood is taken up. The more independent the 
activity of the child during such work, the greater 



280 CHILD TRAINING 

will be its usefulness in the child's entire mental 
development. For this reason, if the teacher aids 
the pupil to such an extent that the objects when 
finished show but little of the child's actual work, 
the true aim of manual training is not achieved. 
The same holds true as regards sewing different 
colored patterns upon traced cardboard, braiding 
and weaving with varicolored strips of paper and 
strands of worsted, to staff laying and to build- 
ing by means of building blocks. All these exer- 
cises are very useful, but the children must be 
permitted to act as independently as possible; 
otherwise all training value is lost. More especi- 
ally does this apply to building. The child is 
able, without difficulty, to recognize in the actual 
objects about him the different parts, the chair, 
table or house, which he has constructed with a 
few blocks. This activity gives him double pleas- 
ure when there is no unnecessary interference 
with his work. Inasmuch as this construction 
work calls forth a number of similar representa- 
tions in the child's mind, and gives him the 
opportunity to recognize constant appearances of 
objects as characteristics of them, the simple 
edifices which the child constructs receive the 



THE CHILDREN 281 

character of representative ideas and gradually- 
lead him to a conceptual mode of thought. In 
this sense manual training represents the most 
intense kind of objective instruction. 

Closely allied to the fabrication of simple forms 
from clay, pasteboard or wood, is drawing — especi- 
ally drawing from nature, since this requires a 
certain amount of ideational control. Even when 
drawings consist merely of a few pencil strokes, 
they often enable the teacher to discern whether 
and to what extent the child has comprehended 
the object it has observed. Whether the draw- 
ings have been executed with technical correctness 
or not is a matter of entirely secondary impor- 
tance. Step by step the instruction should pro- 
gress from simple objects to more complicated 
ones, from pictures of one object to pictures of a 
group of objects. For instance, the child at first 
depicts a tree by a single vertical stroke, repre- 
senting the trunk, from which diagonal strokes 
radiate to the right and to the left, representing 
the branches. At a later stage it makes marks by 
which the twigs and leaves are also represented. 
Finally the trunk of the tree may be emphasized 
by shading, and its species shown by the special 



282 CHILD TRAINING 

form of its leaves and by any fruit which it may 
bear. Decorative drawing is of far less value 
than drawing from nature, for, while it gives a 
certain technical dexterity and teaches the appli- 
cation of geometrical forms, all this may also be 
attained without difficulty through drawing from 
nature. Considerations of an esthetic kind need 
not be considered in the more general instruction, 
altho for specially talented children they should 
not be overlooked. 

So far as concerns writing, which is merely a 
form of elementary drawing, I will limit myself 
to the remark that the upright form of writing 
should have preference over the inclined form. 
From a physician's view-point this statement de- 
serves special emphasis because the posture of the 
body during inclined writing tends toward spinal 
curvature. Undoubtedly, also, we should con- 
sider here whether the construction of the school 
seats is such as to involve harmful consequences. 
Unhygienic school furnishings are responsible in 
many ways for injury to the health of the pupils. 
At this time, however, I can not go more minutely 
into the question of school hygiene as it would 
lead too far from the province of this book. 



THE CHILDREN 283 

A very important place in the scheme of in- 
struction must also be accorded to singing. Aside 
from the respiratory gymnastic value of singing, 
it has been repeatedly noted that speech disorders 
may be improved by such exercise. Stuttering 
children and those who have become apathetic as 
a result of some brain affection can be made to 
sing and, while so doing, to pronounce their words 
clearly and distinctly. Later they are able even 
to recite faultlessly the text of songs with which 
they are familiar, and through the by-path of 
singing they regain the power of speech. Further- 
more we should not fail to consider that the 
fatigue produced by singing lessons is far less 
than that incidental to any other branch of in- 
struction and, for this reason, singing is one of 
the best liked branches. The songs, however, 
must be adapted to the taste and understanding 
of the children. Finally, let us not forget the 
influence of song in arousing the higher emotions 
of the child and thereby elevating it beyond 
purely material concerns. Through song the 
feasts and celebrations which interrupt the uni- 
formity of daily occupation assume their proper 
impressiveness. 



284 CHILD TRAINING 

Because of the educational significance of song 
and its marked influence in the emotional sphere 
of the child, there is imposed upon the teacher 
the obligation of insisting that even those pupils 
who are unable to take an active part in singing 
exercises be present while they are going on. A 
child that reacts to tones of speech indifferently, 
or not at all, often gives plain evidence of being 
pleasurably stimulated by a song which it knows, 
or a melody upon the piano with which it is 
familiar; with sufficient repetitions of the song it 
will not be long before the child of itself attempts 
to sing the melody. This fact seems to me to 
give even more emphasis to the importance of 
individualization in instruction. When this is 
neglected the work of the teacher can not be pro- 
ductive of results, for the pupil will face im- 
possible demands, under which it must fail. When 
a child shows normal progress in various branches 
of instruction, but remains markedly backward in 
others, the cause for its failing is less often an 
inherent fault than the inadequacy of the manner 
of instruction. Some children fail only because 
they are unduly apprehensive and timid, a fact 
very frequently overlooked; in such cases the 



THE CHILDREN 285 

suggestive power of the teacher's personality may 
contribute much toward giving the pupils self- 
confidence. 

Correct speaking is of extraordinary importance 
for practical life. Slight speech defects, like 
stammering and stuttering, are often dependent 
upon timidity. Rough treatment or sarcasm will 
only enhance the evil. By convincing the child, 
through quiet admonition, that it is perfectly able 
to repeat the words spoken to it, a very surprizing 
diminution of the speech defect is often obtained. 
Of course, no such method is applicable to chil- 
dren in whom the disorder of speech is dependent 
upon a lack of intelligence. In such cases the 
disorder usually passes away with an increasing 
development of the intellectual faculties, and 
therefore physiological exercises of the respiratory, 
vocal, and articulatory musculature should be com- 
bined with a method of instruction which will 
extend the conceptual circle of the child. Espe- 
cially should the attempt be made to have the 
child of itself, by the help of its own ear, correct 
erroneously spoken words. The pupil should be 
made to obtain a clear idea how each single tone 
is produced and at the same time should be taught 



286 CHILD TRAINING 

to associate every word with its correct meaning. 
To accomplish this the principle of visualization 
should be followed and every new word illustrated 
by a demonstration of the actual object, of a 
model or of a picture. Heller makes the follow- 
ing suggestions: 

First, Combine a demonstration of the object 
with a slow, distinct pronunciation of the word 
which represents it. 

Secondly, Lead the child to repeat the word by 
means of lip reading. 

Thirdly, Transmit the word through the ear 
alone without permitting it to be read from the 
lips. 

Fourthly, After showing the object, ask the 
child to pronounce the word spontaneously. 

By exercising itself in this manner the child 
not only increases its store of words, but also 
rapidly acquires the capability of correcting its 
erroneous expressions of speech by means of its 
own hearing. Since these exercises in the begin- 
ning are necessarily fatiguing, the lessons should 
be short. 

We can not go into particulars concerning the 
various methods of instruction in writing, read- 



THE CHILDREN 287 

ing, arithmetic, natural history and other subjects, 
inasmuch as they are in great part only of peda- 
gogic and not of medical interest. I would re- 
mark, however, that in relation to all these sub- 
jects the question of chief importance is not so 
much the many-sidedness and the quantity of the 
didactic material, as it is the leading of the chil- 
dren to independence in observation, thought and 
judgment. In order that this end may be at- 
tained, we must steadfastly bear in mind that 
the intellectual endowment of children not only 
in general, but also in certain individual branches 
of instruction, is subject to great fluctuations. 
Some children attain superiority through their re- 
markable ability to remember, others astonish us 
by their mathematical talent, while perhaps they 
are able to make but little progress in the study 
of languages, etc. All these variations may re- 
main well within physiological limits so that the 
school routine, which must be modeled in accord- 
ance with a certain average endowment, will not 
be in any way disturbed thereby. 

Matters change, however, when these variations 
in ability transgress the physiological bounds. 
The remedial pedagogic procedure to be employed 



288 CHILD TRAINING 

in children afflicted with palpable pathological 
defects (idiocy, etc.) will be discust later, in 
the chapter on Therapeutic Education. 

There are children, however, who, altho not 
entirely normal, can not with accuracy be called 
pathological. These, therefore, must be classed 
somewhere between health and disease. This dis- 
tinction has already been mentioned, and I refer 
to it again only because we have reached the 
point at which we should understand what is to 
be done with such children. The pedagogical 
principle which requires us to bring out of chil- 
dren all that can be brought out, and to make 
of them all that can be made of them, demands 
two things — firstly, freedom from those influences 
which may act deleteriously upon the develop- 
ment of the child; and secondly, the saving of 
all that still can be saved in a child that has 
already suffered injury through hereditary taint 
or through unfavorable conditions. 

If atypical children go to school together with 
normal children of their own age, the instruction 
of all will inevitably be impeded. An individual- 
ization so far-reaching as to take into considera- 
tion the capability of each pupil is entirely im- 



THE CHILDREN 289 

practicable in the public schools. Where the in- 
struction is adapted mainly to the capabilities of 
the less talented children, the better-endowed will 
remain behind and will not attain that stage of 
intellectual development which they should. If, 
on the other hand, the plan of instruction con- 
siders only the better-endowed, the latter may 
make profitable progress while the less talented 
remain behind. To make the same demands upon 
the defective ones as upon the others would mean 
to bring something out of them which is not in 
them. Nor can they be forced or punished. In 
dealing with atypical children the strange fact 
soon manifests itself that in them those pedagogic 
influences which always prove efficient with nor- 
mal children remain without effect. If we are to 
save what still can be saved in them, it can only 
be done by means of instruction adapted to their 
mental capabilities. All other instruction would 
constitute an overburden under which the atypical 
children would break down, and then they would 
be unable to do any further work. Even among 
normal school children the question of overburden- 
ing occasionally becomes acute. In this connection 
I can not repress the statement that altho school 



290 CHILD TRAINING 

children in my opinion are obliged to learn an 
unnecessary amount by rote, the so-called over- 
burdening is the result either of erroneous methods 
of instruction and the consequent difficulty in 
learning, or of the fact that the children, in 
consequence of under-nourishment, unhealthy 
manner of work and surroundings, or other dele- 
terious conditions, are no longer up to their 
normal efficiency. 

Because of the overburdening mentally deficient 
children, instead of profiting through attendance 
in the public schools, suffer a diminution in 
efficiency. To prevent this they must be instructed 
separately from normal children of their own age. 
The only possible means of preventing in- 
creased defectiveness is to assign the deficient 
children to special classes for instruction. Let me 
recall at this point what I have said elsewhere in 
regard to the Binet test and the mental or Binet 
age derived from it. Where there are no supple- 
mentary schools or special classes, nothing re- 
mains to be done save to instruct the mentally 
retarded children together with younger children 
of the same Binet age. Wherever possible this 
should be avoided. For, aside from the many 



THE CHILDREN 291 

discordancies which will arise when, for example, 
fourteen-year-old and eight-year-old children are 
placed side by side in school, the instruction 
must also be given according to a special method, 
by teachers who have the proper understanding 
of the children's peculiarities. 

Much credit is due to Koch for the work he 
has done in encouraging the establishment of sup- 
plementary schools for poorly endowed and de- 
ficient children. The preface to his book says : 
"Educators and parents could mitigate many a 
disorder, prevent many an ill, if they would give 
some thought to the causes of abnormal manifesta- 
tions. They would then perceive and understand 
the apparent mannerisms, the laziness, the mere 
slowness and the peculiarity, or even the extra- 
ordinary talent and promising 'genius' of many a 
child, in a manner different from the traditional 
one, and would perhaps, notwithstanding its shim- 
mering blossoms, curb the imagination of one 
pupil, repress and dampen the ardor of another, 
and thus prevent the brief pleasure produced by 
their own vanity from encountering an abrupt 
end." 

These words contain several noteworthy sugges- 



292 CHILD TRAINING 

tions in regard to prophylactic training. For of 
all the direct causes of disturbance of the child's 
development, those which endeavor to accelerate 
artificially the child's natural mental progress 
must be considered first. All endeavors tending 
toward the production of artificial prematurity 
merit universal condemnation by rational physi- 
cians and pedagogs. Chief among these are school 
attendance at too early an age, premature musical 
instruction of children who do not show the 
slightest degree of musical talent, and, more es- 
pecially, the premature kindling of the child's 
ambitions. In the same measure that we esteem 
and encourage ambition which is the product of 
healthy character growth should we discounten- 
ance that depraved ambition which is based solely 
on endless self-exaction with the purpose of sur- 
passing classmates or companions in every pos- 
sible way. Such competition is not only detri- 
mental to mental development on account of the 
inordinate exertion it involves, but it also may 
be damaging from an ethical point of view be- 
cause it engenders in the mind of the child such 
baser passions as hate, jealousy and envy. All 
open displays of marks of merit which emphasize 



THE CHILDREN 293 

the greater accomplishments of one child as com- 
pared with another should be discouraged. In 
my opinion, moreover, re-assignment of seats after 
every examination on the basis of the comparative 
showing of the pupils is an objectionable institu- 
tion. As a result of an arrangement of this sort 
the pupils are never quite at ease; the fear of 
some that they will be sent down and the ambition 
of others to rise keeps all in a state of emotional 
unrest which can not but exert a pernicious in- 
fluence upon their nervous systems. 

A danger little considered, but none the less 
real, is the preclusion of children from the com- 
panionship of other children of their own age, 
obliging them to associate entirely with grown-up 
people. To this are to be attributed the pre- 
cociousness and other psycho-pathological mani- 
festations so often observed in the only child. 
Seclusion of the only child from other children is 
often enforced by parents through fear that the 
favored one may be exposed to the contagion of 
disease or may acquire bad habits or vices through 
imitation. Both of the possibilities, however, can 
not be entirely avoided, even with the greatest 
care, and they certainly do not justify the bar- 



294 CHILD TRAINING 

barity of a measure which ignores or minimizes 
the child's natural social requirements. Children 
whose desires and impulses find no natural outlet 
will necessarily have recourse to stilted artificial 
occupation as a substitute for the games of child- 
hood which are of such extraordinary import for 
their mental development. Moreover, the training 
which such supposedly "well-educated" children 
customarily receive, and which is mainly directed 
toward the acquisition of good manners, stifles all 
inclination toward healthy self-activity and often 
turns them into little hypocrites and dissemblers. 
Hence it will be seen that the pedagogic interest 
attaching to the only child is worthy of much 
special consideration. 

Friedjung, in the course of an investigation re- 
garding the bodily and mental development of 
the school children in Vienna, came to the con- 
clusion that neuroses occurred with relative fre- 
quency in those who had no brothers or sisters. 
In directing the attention of neurologists, parents 
and teachers to this fact, he exprest the opinion 
that the very reasons which prompted a couple to 
have only one child were the ones which were re- 
sponsible for the unsatisfactory educational result 



THE CHILDREN 295 

usually obtained in an only child. There can, 
above all, be no doubt that the only child is far 
more frequently neuropathically tainted than the 
offspring of parents with numerous children. The 
only child is partly the product of hyperculture, 
and its manifestations of degeneracy are partly 
the product of material want. That riches and 
marital fertility usually occupy an inverse rela- 
tionship to each other is a saying that dates from 
ancient times. Apriori, and according to the Mal- 
thusian theory of population, we should expect 
that the number of children would increase as 
prosperity increased and would decrease as mate- 
rial want became more pronounced. But in com- 
mon experience it would seem that the number of 
children is governed far less by the question, 
which Malthus has placed in the foreground, of 
the means of support, than by consideration of 
other sorts. Among these considerations, neuro- 
pathic states of the parents certainly occupy a 
prominent place. These states may be caused by 
over-satiation and relaxation, resulting from luxu- 
rious or extravagant living, or they may be the 
product of an excessive consumption of nerve 
energy, entailed by the struggle for existence. 



296 CHILD TRAINING 

However produced, neuropathic states of the par- 
ents render childlessness, or at least the greatest 
possible restriction of natural conjugal fertility, 
desirable. 

The only child is often hereditarily tainted, 
and when the mother during her pregnancy is 
subjected to periods of excitement, or is much 
troubled by fears and worry, as hysterical or 
neuropathic women so often are, further injurious 
influences are added, which from the very begin- 
ning are likely to lend a psychopathic character 
to the hereditary taint. Notwithstanding all 
this, we must admit that even an only 
child may come into the world in a perfectly 
normal state, and, under favorable conditions, may 
develop in a normal way both physically and 
mentally. Fortunately, too, there exist healthy 
parents, who, remaining contented with one child, 
are able to avoid those errors of training which 
usually are so pernicious in similar cases. As a 
rule, two factors cooperate sooner or later to 
render the only child an object of worry for 
parents and educators. The first of these is the 
neuropathic taint, the congenital inferiority of 
brain and nervous system; the second, which 



THE CHILDREN 297 

exerts its influence even in the absence of any 
taint, and without which the bodily and mental 
development of the child may be a perfectly nor- 
mal one, is the injudiciousness of parents or people 
to whose care the child is entrusted. As we have 
seen, many children are exposed to neglect because 
their parents are addicted to drink and do not 
concern themselves about them, or because their 
parents lack the means to give them the necessary 
care and attention. In the only child however, it 
is usually not neglect but over-solicitude which im- 
plants the seed for pathological states. The only 
child is the object of constant and superfluous 
concern; it is enveloped in an exaggerated tender- 
ness. The parents are always occupied in fulfil- 
ing its every wish; they are in despair when its 
screams give evidence of displeasure; they are 
blind to its obstinacy and other faults, they marvel 
at the most insignificant output of its mental life 
as an expression of genius, they make of the child 
an object of worship, and expose it to the admir- 
ation of friends and acquaintances on every pos- 
sible occasion. They live in a state of constant 
fear that something may happen to their child or 
that something they consider essential to its well- 



298 CHILD TRAINING 

being may have been overlooked. Small wonder, 
under these circumstances, if the only child looks 
upon itself very early as the center of the uni- 
verse, makes inordinate demands upon every one, 
becomes unmeasurably egotistic and has violent 
outbursts of anger when its demands are refused 
or its desires opposed. Education, of course, 
should effect at least the control of one's impulses 
and passions, but the educational result of such 
coddling and spoiling as we have just described is 
to give the child's passions and faults unbridled 
sway over it. It becomes moody, undecided, in- 
capable of persistent work. Never having learned 
to bend its own will to that of others, it meets 
with opposition at every turn, loses all desire to 
learn, tires rapidly after all bodily or mental 
exertion, and in consequence of its entire lack of 
self-control, is soon in a condition which must 
be looked upon as the border-line between health 
and disease. Usually, also, as a result of the 
pampering, the bodily resistance of the child be- 
comes lowered and this is the more evident the 
more the foolish parents have endeavored to guard 
their darling against every breath of air and have 
made the choice of its food and drink subservient 



THE CHILDREN 299 

to its own wishes, instead of applying the prin- 
ciples of rational nourishment. 

Even when the child has suffered through the 
exaggerated forebearance and indecision of the 
parents, the occurrence of all the manifestations 
which we have mentioned is inevitable, but when 
to these influences there is added that of neuro- 
pathic taint, the child governed solely by the dic- 
tates of its own impulses will be entirely unable 
to adapt itself to its environment and will be in 
constant conflict with every one into contact with 
whom the stern realities of life bring it. Where 
no hereditary taint exists, eccentricities which 
have been acquired through erroneous training 
can be partly effaced through association with 
other children, but where inherited and acquired 
neuropathic influences meet in one individual, the 
aggregation of those afflictions will often reduce 
the child to such a state that it can not be prop- 
erly cared for outside of an institution. 

Hence we see how the principle of individual- 
ization may be exaggerated. With as much firm- 
ness as we use in applying the rule that every 
child should be treated in accordance with its 
proper personality must we recognize the wrong 



300 CHILD TRAINING 

involved in not counteracting the development of 
disordered tendencies. Under all circumstances 
must such development be supprest; where this is 
not done, we find the type of disorder encountered 
so frequently in the only child. It may not be 
without interest to recall here the remark of 
Andrew Carnegie in his well-known book * ' Empire 
of Business," that it must be considered a mis- 
fortune to be the only son of a rich man, for this 
only son never learns the meaning of sincere 
arduous work, his will meets no opposition, atten- 
tions are showered upon him, and he gradually 
acquires a state of exalted self appreciation which 
unfits him for the demands of practical life. 

The pedagogic principle of individualization 
does not mean that every child should be left to 
develop itself unrestrictedly in conformity with 
its own individuality, but that the individuality 
of the child should be so directed that it may 
become usefully active. Altho the son of the 
rich man does not become a burden to society, 
he leads au existence which is useless, but which, 
through proper training, might have been made 
valuable. Whenever a sudden change for the bad 
in his financial condition takes place, and he is 



THE CHILDREN 301 

forced to depend upon himself for his support, to 
carry on his own struggle for existence, his mis- 
fortune is doubly great because usually the pre- 
vious neglect can not be remedied nor the errors 
of training rectified. In families with numerous 
children, especially those in modest financial cir- 
cumstances, the same danger is far less likely to 
arise. For in such families, while individuality 
may not receive proper consideration, the exi- 
gencies of persistent activity does not permit dis- 
ordered whims and tendencies to spring up so 
easily as in the child of wealthy parents. 

Before closing this chapter upon intellectual 
development, I would again emphasize certain 
important points. Briefly stated, prophylactic 
training, in all its endeavors, must not lose sight 
of the mutational dependence of bodily and mental 
functions. Whatever favors physical development 
is of benefit to mental growth. Conversely, every 
disorder of bodily function, more particularly of 
the central nervous system, also reacts unfavor- 
ably upon psychic activity. The causes of un- 
satisfactory intellectual development may there- 
fore, as we have seen, be direct ones, which exert 
an immediate influence upon the mind of the child 



302 CHILD TRAINING 

through wrong methods of training, or indirect 
ones, which first implicate the physical state of 
the child through incorrect diet, insufficient sleep 
and other baneful influences, and thus produce 
disorders of the mental processes. Prophylaxis, 
however, has not done its entire duty when it has 
guarded the child against physical or mental harm. 
When harmful influences have been present since 
birth, or have been active since earliest childhood, 
it has still another task before it. In such in- 
stances it must not only aim to check the progress 
of these influences but must place the child under 
new conditions of life and must adapt the methods 
of instruction and training to its individual 
peculiarities in accordance with Montessori's suc- 
cessful example, so that whatever part of the 
child's mentality remains to be rescued may be 
rescued. The vitalizing principle of the Montes- 
sori Method is distinguished precisely by the fact 
that it attaches no importance to the mechanical 
acquirement of knowledge, to the acquisition of 
the largest possible number of facts, while it lays 
the utmost stress upon the mental assimilation of 
facts through individual research and discoverj^ 
By adhering to the principle of conveying to the 



THE CHILDREN 303 

child no knowledge which transgresses the limits 
of its understanding, this method acts not only- 
according to the spirit of pedagogy, based upon 
true physiological psychology, but it also complies 
with all the conditions demanded of prophylactic 
training. 

D. FORMATION OP THE CHARACTER AND THE WILL 

The formation of the character and the will 
must keep pace with the development of the in- 
tellect. Of what avail would be the attainment 
of even a large sum of knowledge, of what service 
the power of precise observation, correct thought 
and judgment if these were not accompanied by 
the ingrained habit of governing one's conduct 
according to certain definite principles, and of 
carrying out with all energy what has been recog- 
nized as right. In this regard the omissions of 
early training can be compensated for only with 
difficulty in later life. Education, therefore, must 
enable the child to act in accordance with pre- 
cise motives and prevent it from being led astray 
by whims or momentary moods. Education must 
enable the child to pursue a definite aim with 
resolution and perseverance. This is doubly nee- 



304 CHILD TRAINING 

essary in a time like the present, when the 
struggle for existence is steadily becoming more 
difficult and demands made upon the efficiency 
of each individual by inordinate competition, are 
persistently increasing. 

Therefore, such training as will fortify the will 
and strengthen the character, constitutes both the 
keystone and the turret of all pedagogic activity. 
Children by nature are pronounced egotists. This 
disposition is decidedly purposeful, as it serves 
for the maintenance of the individual. It would, 
therefore, be entirely wrong to endeavor by means 
of educational measures to suppress or eradicate 
the self-love which nature has implanted in man. 
Egotism in itself is neither to be commended nor 
condemned. Only that boundless selfishness which 
infringes upon the rights of others is pernicious. 
It is this type of egotism which must be counter- 
acted or, rather, as Montessori says, must be re- 
cognized as hurtful by the child itself. Such 
recognition will bring about a voluntary sub- 
ordination of selfish interests to the interests of 
the many, and the obedience obtained in this 
manner is, as corroborated by Holmes, of far 
greater moral worth than discipline secured 



THE CHILDREN 305 

through subjugation of the will. "Breaking" a 
child's will, accustoming it to blind obedience, is 
certainly a convenient means of training in so far 
as it facilitates discipline in the school, but its 
result is most harmful, because it paralyzes the 
will-power and produces undecisiveness which pre- 
cludes any initiative and which requires constant 
supervision. Education's aim must be not the 
enfeeblement, but the reinforcement of the will- 
power which nature has given the child. Then, 
too, education often dispels that unnatural ob- 
stinacy which many interpret as strength of will, 
but which is actually an evidence of weakness of 
will, in that it unfits the child to master even its 
own self. The stronger the will, the greater the 
self-control, and the power of combating depraved 
thoughts, baser passions and temptations to 
wrongdoing. 

The plasticity and impressionability of the 
child's nature permits it to be molded by educa- 
tional influences into a form which increasing age 
renders more and more fixt and unchangeable. So 
long as its power of judgment is lacking, the 
child has a strong reverence for authority; and it 
is for this reason, as will presently be shown, that 



306 CHILD TRAINING 

educational influences cling the more enduringly 
the more they conform to the tendencies which 
the child already possesses. This is true in a 
good sense as well as in a bad sense. Where they 
are opposed by the child's nature, pernicious in- 
fluences, as well as ennobling ones, may remain 
without effect for a long time. Finally, however, 
in consequence of its respect for authority, the 
child succumbs to them. Its respect for authority 
renders the child susceptible in a high degree to 
suggestion. 

In the final analysis of the matter the child's imi- 
tative instinct is dependent upon its lack of dis- 
crimination through which it is led to attach 
greater significance to the words and the acts of 
grown people in proportion to the increase of its 
confidence in them. Religious and moral influences 
become effective through suggestion. They may 
be of great value for character formation when 
exerted in the right way. Above all such in- 
fluences should not pervert the child's nature by 
implanting in it the idea of its own iniquity in 
consequence of original sin, nor arouse in the 
child's mind improper incentives for praiseworthy 
conduct through promises of Heavenly reward or 



THE CHILDREN 307 

threats of Divine punishment. Holmes, as I have 
already said, takes the perfectly correct stand 
that children should be incited to act morally 
through the satisfaction they will derive from 
doing good and from mastering their evil thoughts, 
and not through the fear of punishment, nor the 
prospect of reward. Such morality, uncovered 
and independent of all egotistical motives, cer- 
tainly is of far greater worth than the enforced 
and constrained observance of moral precepts. 
But the suggestions which continuously spring 
forth from the surroundings of the child may also 
influence its character formation in a directly 
harmful way. It certainly is clear that a child's 
association with morally delinquent people can 
not be productive of good. Unfortunately, as we 
have already said, the parents themselves must 
often be classed among those who exert a dele- 
terious influence upon children. Moreover, many 
parents have neither the time nor the patience 
necessary for properly occupying themselves with 
their children. It is wise for such parents to 
place their children in charge of other people, 
but it is reprehensible to take this step, as is so 
often done, without first carefully scrutinizing the 



308 CHILD TRAINING 

character of those to whom the care of the chil- 
dren is entrusted. 

An uncurbed fantasy, such as we often en- 
counter in hysterical individuals, is one of the 
greatest impediments to the development of char- 
acter. Juvenile literature abounds with narrations 
that tend toward unhealthy stimulations of the 
child's imagination. In this category belong those 
Indian adventures and detective stories, so widely 
read and so replete with coarseness, which paint 
the most sanguinary and revolting occurrences in 
lurid colors and do not even stop at descriptions 
of indecencies and obscenities. For young girls 
novels which are based upon morbid sentimental- 
ity, and in which an affected emotional tender- 
ness is often the veil for lust and frivolity, are 
especially harmful. Under the influences of such 
literature, it is not unusual for little boys to be 
directly misled by older girls, and to enter upon 
relations which far transgress all bounds of chil- 
dren's friendship. Similarly do the adulatory 
relations existing between young girls and be- 
tween young men, which not infrequently bear the 
stamp of homosexuality, often originate from un- 
healthy literature. The pernicious influence which 



THE CHILDREN 309 

even newspaper reading may have upon very 
young children is shown by the occurrence of 
child suicide as a direct result of newspaper re- 
ports of similar occurrences, and by the fact that 
games arranged in imitation of executions re- 
ported in newspapers have been the direct cause 
of death for not a few children. Children who 
are nearing the period of sexual development, or 
who have already reached the age of puberty, are 
not infrequently prematurely excited by sensa- 
tional reports of unmoral occurrences and thereby 
are led to abuse themselves or to other erotic 
aberrations. Theatrical productions or art exhi- 
bitions, while perfectly proper in themselves, may 
be improper for yoiuig children and produce the 
same untoward results. For instance, an exhi- 
bition of the nude in painting or statuary may be 
ever so harmless — in fact, it may be esthetically 
of the greatest interest for persons whose character 
is morally fixt; but for immature children such 
exposition certainly has its improprieties and 
dangerous possibilities. 

The character formation of nervous children is 
an especially difficult problem for all educators, 
and is entirely beyond the power of those who 



310 CHILD TRAINING 

have no understanding of the peculiarities of the 
nervous child and who, therefore, are likely to 
believe they can break its supposed obstinacy by 
opposition and force. Such Draconian methods 
will foster the growth of the child's nervousness 
until, upon arriving at a proper school age, it 
bears the marks of decided mental abnormality. 
On the other hand, a too considerate training, one 
which at all times and in all circumstances allows 
the child full liberty to do as it pleases, and per- 
mits its character to develop under the influence 
of those accidentalities which are the products of 
its neurotic disposition, can only be calamitous. 
Even the discipline of the school can exert little 
wholesome influence upon the nervous child, while, 
on the other hand, it may even increase its ner- 
vousness. Children of the type we are now dis- 
cussing usually have accustomed themselves to 
stray, without law or order, from one subject to 
another, and, therefore, such school discipline as 
utterly disregards their condition is felt by them 
as an unbearable restraint. Nervous children must 
receive individual care and attention, directed to- 
ward the development of the intellect as well as 
toward the training of will-power and force of 



THE CHILDREN 311 

character. Therapeutic suggestion will be found 
of great help in training the nervous child. In 
the chapter upon intellectual development we have 
already seen that in order to instil in the child 
the conviction that it can do a thing if it will, 
all we need do sometimes is to strengthen its 
confidence in itself. It is well known that the 
successful training of wild animals is based on 
the fact that the brutes do not know their own 
strength and, therefore, fear their trainer. Once 
he has been defeated, the trainer's power and 
authority are gone. Nervous children, like all 
other neurotics, are dominated by a belief in their 
own inability. Hence the paralyses, abnormal sen- 
sory disturbances and other functional nervous 
disorders which characterize the neuroses and in 
which no organic basis is discoverable. If, then, 
it is possible, by assuring and persuading them 
of their potency to encourage nervous children 
to better intellectual accomplishments, then the 
same tactics must also lead to a strengthening of 
their will-power. As a matter of fact, many 
observers have found that nervous children may 
be freed from many vices, such as masturbation, 
laziness, lying, abnormal fear, nail biting, various 



312 CHILD TRAINING 

tics, etc., by psychotherapy, and that sleeplessness 
and nocturnal restlessness, so prejudicial to their 
health and development, may be relieved by the 
same means. 

Pedagogy to-day has other tasks than in the 
"good old times." It must accomplish more be- 
cause the struggle for existence has signally aug- 
mented the demands made upon each individual. 
But, the training which is necessary to produce 
force of will and determination of character is 
to-day much more difficult, and this is so because 
nervousness and the diminution of energy which 
accompanies it, are increasing in an appalling 
measure. That the continued spread of nervous 
disorder is to be attributed in part to the gigan- 
tic and rapid advance which culture is making 
can hardly be doubted. Let us not forget that 
the world has made greater strides during the 
last five decades than during the preceding five 
centuries, and that these advances have been 
accompanied by correspondingly great changes in 
the conditions of human life. It is human nature 
to desire to remain in an accustomed rut, to carry 
out occupational duties according to the manner 
in which one has been taught. Hence the aversion 



THE CHILDREN 313 

to new ideas, the misoneism which is part of every 
individual. Formerly this tendency could be 
followed without difficulty. Now it is no longer 
possible to follow it. Man to-day must struggle 
unceasingly against inherited habits and trans- 
mitted notions which are no longer adapted to 
the spirit of the times. The necessity for earning 
his bread obliges him constantly to unlearn and 
to learn anew, in order not to be outstript by his 
competitors. This constant and rapid change 
demands an adaptability and requires a brain 
efficiency which many do not possess. The lag- 
gards in the march of progress become nervous, 
finally break down and transmit a deficient ner- 
vous system to their children, who are then doubly 
hampered since they are not able to comply even 
with ordinary demands, let alone those which the 
augmented stress of contest makes upon them. 

Thus competition, the vitalizing element of 
progress, also has its shadows represented, not 
only by nervousness and an enfeeblement of will- 
power, but also by the increasing damage to 
character development caused by unhealthy ri- 
valry. It is precisely because one's principles 
are recast with changed conditions of life that 



314 CHILD TRAINING 

action in conformity with well-defined principles 
becomes more and more difficult. Beliefs that our 
forefathers considered sacred and inviolable to- 
day are looked upon as evidences of prejudice, 
narrow-mindedness and bigotry. The strict sense 
of duty and responsibility possest by our fathers 
wanes more and more in an era which bears the 
stamp of unscrupulousness. Adaptation to the 
modern spirit often means nothing less than a 
rupture with those transmitted ideas of honor 
which are incompatible with the rapid and easy 
acquirement of wealth. Consequently, the strug- 
gle for existence develops not only good and 
useful qualities, produces not only the highest 
efficiency, but also calls into activity those de- 
precable instincts which lie dormant in human 
nature. 

Yet, when all has been said, the spirit of the 
times simply reflects the ideas of certain individ- 
uals who have known how to gain a certain ascen- 
dency over their fellow beings. When other in- 
dividuals, of a future generation, will have in- 
fluenced their fellow beings in a contrary direc- 
tion, the spirit of the times will favor new ideals. 
Pedagogy, however, can not shirk the task which 



THE CHILDREN 315 

the existing complicated conditions of life have 
forced upon it — the task so to simplify the in- 
structional methods of developing the intellect 
and so to train the coming generation that the 
latter will be able to adapt itself to the changing 
conditions without sacrificing the principles that 
form the basis of true character formation. 
Especially should this generation learn to appre- 
ciate work as one factor which lends true interest 
to life, whether fate has placed the individual in 
a higher or lower sphere of activity. The feebly 
endowed and the nervous can still fill their places 
in life provided pedagogy will have due consider- 
ation for their lowered powers of nerve resist- 
ance, and provided that they be burdened with 
comparatively lesser responsibilities in their later 
occupational activities. 

One thing more should be added. The free 
choice of a life-pursuit is an integral part of 
prophylactic training. The augmenting neuras- 
thenia of the present time is certainly the result 
in part of the conflict between inclination and 
occupational activity. I need only point to the 
overcrowding of all so-called "academic" pur- 
suits. A marked disinclination for ordinary work 



316 CHILD TRAINING 

seems to-day to be a characteristic of our much- 
vaunted cultural progress. Not for a moment 
would I deprecate the endeavor to better one's 
social position, but this very aim has been the 
undoing of many who have sacrificed their health 
to satisfy their ambition. Foolish parents are 
often at fault when their children become mental 
cripples. The practise of having but two chil- 
dren, which is becoming more and more general 
and which permits greater care and attention to 
be given to the bringing up of each child, un- 
doubtedly harmonizes with the desire to rise to a 
higher social level. The parents want their chil- 
dren to be better off in the world than they them- 
selves have been; they would perforce have them 
study for professional careers, partly on account 
of the greater ease and earning facility supposed 
to be attributes of professional life. But how 
often is all the sacrifice of time, money, and effort 
in vain ! How often does it become evident, only 
too late, that the acquirement of a scientific edu- 
cation makes mental cripples of those who are not 
fitted for it ! How many a person of average 
talent could have become a useful member of 
society had he not allowed false ambition to force 



THE CHILDREN 317 

him into a career entirely iinsuited to his quali- 
fications ! 

The purposefulness which rules in nature is 
shown again by the harmony which exists be- 
tween mental endowment and the various branches 
of occupational activity. The ordinary farm 
worker or factory hand who conscientiously fulfils 
the duties devolving upon him is of far greater 
worth to human civilization, than the physician, 
lawyer, or teacher who is not adapted to his calling, 
and who breaks down under the stress of it. 

Individualization is, therefore, quite as impor- 
tant in the selection of an occupation, especially 
when it requires special endowments, as is the 
actual course of instruction and training. We 
must prevent the joy in living from being des- 
troyed by a pursuit which does not permit one's 
proper individuality to unfold. 



PART FIFTH 

THERAPEUTIC TRAINING 

I. THE EDUCABLE 

A. Causal Treatment 

We have seen that certain forms of mental 
weakness are etiologically dependent upon incur- 
able defects of the brain, while others are pro- 
duced by curable bodily states. In connection with 
this let us again recall that state which is char- 
acterized by an inability to concentrate the atten- 
tion upon any one subject for a length of time 
and which is so often met with as a result of 
nasal obstruction. Pages might be filled with 
case reports, interesting to both pedagogs and 
physicians, which illustrate the improvement that 
almost inevitably takes place in cases of aprosexia 
after the cause, the obstruction to nasal breath- 
ing, has been removed by means of a harmless 
operative intervention. As a result of the free 
319 



320 CHILD TRAINING 

nasal respiration thus established, the speech 
gradually improves, the mouth can be kept closed, 
the face loses its stupid and relaxed expression, 
the hearing, when it has been affected, becomes 
better, in consequence of the re-established per- 
meability of the Eustachian tubes to the passage 
of air, the deep breathing which is made possible 
produces a favorable change in the entire meta- 
bolism, and, what here concerns us most, the 
child, having been relieved of its physical dis- 
order, loses its dreamy, inattentive state and again 
becomes interested in mental work. 

The condition of aprosexia, however, is not 
always caused by adenoid vegetations or other 
nasal obstruction. It may be due to actual im- 
becility, and in that case the excrescences in the 
naso-pharynx constitute merely an associated, 
more or less frequently occurring condition. Thus, 
for example, as we have already mentioned, the 
Mongoloid idiots, almost without exception, suffer 
from the presence of adenoid vegetations. On 
account of ignorance of this fact it was believed 
for a long time that the dependence of aprosexia 
upon obstruction to nasal respiration constituted 
an invariable rule. Consequently it was no more 



CAUSAL TREATMENT 321 

than natural that the generalizations prematurely 
formed from those successes which followed oper- 
ative removal of nasal obstruction should have 
aroused hopes and expectations which could never 
be fulfilled. For, of course, no operative inter- 
vention could remove the aprosexia or other 
psychic abnormalities when these, altho accom- 
panied by adenoid vegetations, were due to other 
causes. Only in more recent times have we 
learned properly to differentiate the varied cases. 
The failure of surgical treatment in certain cases 
of aprosexia associated with, but not dependent 
upon, adenoid vegetations recalls, says Heller, the 
failure of Seguin and Guggenbiihl. Both of them 
were misled, by favorable therapeutic results, into 
applying their methods in cases of feeble-minded- 
ness for which they were not suited. It has now 
been proved that the value of operative inter- 
vention as a causal treatment of aprosexia is 
confined to those cases in which there exists no 
actual imbecility, but merely an analogous state 
produced by obstructed nasal respiration. 

For a time surgical intervention also ranked as 
a means of causal treatment of microcephaly. 
The basis for this belief had been furnished by 



322 CHILD TRAINING 

Virchow's theory that the smallness of the head 
was due to a premature synostosis of the cranial 
sutures, with resultant inhibition of brain develop- 
ment. To-day it is the accepted opinion that the 
smallness of the brain is the cause and not the 
result of the smallness of the skull. Practically 
never does actual ossification of the skulls of 
juvenile imbeciles occur, according to the ex- 
haustive investigations of Bourneville, Morselli 
and others. In 350 microcephalic skulls, Bourne- 
ville did not find a single one in which an ossi- 
fication of the sutures had taken place. In ignor- 
ance of this fact, Lannelongue cut strips of bone 
from the skull along the longitudinal and coronal 
sutures in order to reduce the pressure in the 
interior of the skull and to allow more space for 
the brain to grow. He reported the cases of 
twenty-five patients upon whom he had performed 
operations, the results of which were said to have 
been good. The operation afterward was fre- 
quently repeated in accordance with Lanne- 
longue 's recommendation, and Loewenstein was 
able to report upon 111, and Pilcz's reports show 
that in 17.24 per cent, of the cases death occurred 
as a result of the operation, while in 36.45 per 



CAUSAL TREATMENT 323 

cent, the operation was specially characterized as 
entirely unsuccessful, inasmuch as it in no wise 
influenced the course of the patient's mental 
development. In 1899 Czerny, in Heidelberg, 
reported the case of a child which four years 
after the operation showed precisely the same 
picture of imbecility as it did prior to the opera- 
tion. The meager improvement which was re- 
ported in 38.42 per cent, of the cases need not be 
attributed to the operation, since the hospital care 
in itself, associated as it was with more careful 
treatment, better physical care and general change 
in environment, could, without any operation 
whatsoever, have sufficed to produce a beneficial 
change in the microcephalic children — a change 
which, moreover, may even occur spontaneously. 

In view of the discouraging results of the 
Lannelongue craniectomy, this operation has been 
entirely abandoned as a means of causal treat- 
ment in microcephalic imbecility. On the other 
hand, it has been shown in a number of cases that 
opening the skull by means of an osteoplastic 
flap, and at the same time incising the dura 
mater, has caused a certain amelioration of some 
of the associated manifestations, such as epilep- 



324 CHILD TRAINING 

toid attacks, partial paralysis, nystagmus, etc. It 
must, therefore, be admitted that surgical inter- 
vention in microcephaly is warranted for the 
relief of symptoms due to focal disorder just as 
craniectomy should be performed in case of brain 
tumor for the purpose of decompression, or for 
the removal of the neoplasm. 

In place of craniectomy, the less dangerous 
brain puncture, especially that of the lateral ven- 
tricles, has been recommended. This compara- 
tively less serious operation, in my opinion, has 
no value whatsoever in this condition. On the 
other hand it may be useful in hydrocephalus. In 
the latter affection, Heubner, Bergmann, and 
others, after puncturing the ventricles, have noted 
a cessation in the morbid growth of the head, 
accompanied by progress in the child's intellectual 
development. A hydrocephalic child whose ven- 
tricles were punctured by Rehn developed well, 
and was 41/. years of age when it died of bron- 
chitis. Another child operated on by him during 
the first months of its life developed in a normal 
manner and attended school with success. Berkhan 
gives preference to lumbar puncture, because this 
procedure is accompanied by no danger; he advo- 



CAUSAL TREATMENT 325 

cates puncturing the subarachnoid space of the 
spinal cord at the earliest possible moment in 
order from the very beginning to prevent the 
pressure upon the brain, caused by the increased 
production of spinal fluid. Personally, I believe 
with Gushing that some day we shall find a 
rational method of relieving or curing these cases 
by surgical treatment, but it is not at all likely 
that this will be in the line of simple drainage. 
Gushing sums up our present results of the sur- 
gical treatment of hydrocephalus very properly 
in these words: "I hesitate to say how many har- 
rowed parents apply for surgical relief of hydro- 
cephalic offspring, or how many of the cases have 
been operated upon, or how discouraging have 
been most of the results. Of one thing I am 
convinced, that we are only at the threshold of 
this subject and that it is large enough to need 
its own specialization." 

After all, the occasional improvement of epi- 
leptic attacks through craniectomy or ventricular 
puncture is mere symptomatic treatment, which 
can in no wise affect the underlying cause of the 
mental deficiency. Similarly the treatment of 
hereditary lues, of rhachitis or of tuberculosis as 



326 CHILD TRAINING 

a constitutional basis for an existing feeble- 
mindedness is but rarely worthy of consideration. 
Nor are we able to influence directly those dis- 
orders of the nervous system which, occurring 
after scarlet fever, typhoid and other infectious 
diseases, not infrequently lead to mental 
deficiency. 

In view of these facts the results which have 
been attained through the causal treatment of 
cretinism are all the more encouraging. After it 
had been ascertained that this disease could be 
traced to an absence of thyroid function, an at- 
tempt was made to remedy the defect by means of 
organotherapy through operatively transplanting 
the thyroid gland from animals into the abdomens 
or under the skin of myxedema sufferers, whether 
they were afflicted with goiter or had no thyroid 
gland at all. Later, also, animal thyroid gland 
was administered to the patient by mouth. In 
many instances the effect of this treatment was 
astonishing. At first the characteristic swelling 
of the skin disappeared, then the patients in- 
creased materially in size, their temperature be- 
came normal and their entire manner altered so 
remarkably that, as has been very aptly said, 



CAUSAL TREATMENT 327 

they were as tho born anew. This metamorphosis 
in their bodily conditions was accompanied by a 
marked improvement in their mental state, altho 
it could not be said that patients with outspoken 
dementia were restored to a normal condition by 
means of this treatment. The successes attained 
through thyroid medication have become still 
greater since preparations of animal thyroid 
gland (usually sheep's thyroid) have been suc- 
cessfully manufactured and made easily obtain- 
able, and since it has been made possible to keep 
these preparations without deterioration for a 
long time and to administer them in accurately 
determined quantities. As a result of the last fact 
those undesirable associated actions which arose 
from the administration of an uncertain quantity 
of the glandular substance, and such toxic effects 
as vomiting, palpitation of the heart, etc., pro- 
duced by an overdose, may be almost entirely 
avoided. In younger children no more than 0.1 
gram of the gland should be given at first, and 
the amount should be gradually increased to the 
point of toleration. The treatment is continued 
for months, interrupted from time to time, and 
again taken up, until all that can be expected 



328 CHILD TRAINING 

from it has been attained. It is hardly necessary 
to say that a rational treatment by means of 
thyroid extracts is permissible only under the 
constant supervision of a physician. 

As a matter of course disappointments could 
not fail to arise even where this treatment was 
used. When it had first been determined that 
the physical and mental changes which took place 
under the influence of the systematic administra- 
tion of thyroid extract warranted adding this new 
remedy to the few causal medicines already 
known, physicians and others fell into the error 
of expecting too much of it, just as was the case 
when the question of the removal of adenoid 
vegetations first arose, and as always occurs when- 
ever any new remedy is introduced. The sup- 
posed cause of feeble-mindedness was suddenly 
transferred from the vegetations of the naso- 
pharynx to the thyroid gland, and all persons 
who showed symptoms of slighter or greater 
mental backwardness were given thyroid extract 
indiscriminately. These patients who were not 
afiflicted with actual cretinism, who, perhaps, were 
not even actually feeble-minded, notwithstanding 
their symptoms, of course, were not beneficially 




S •:; 





CAUSAL TREATMENT 329 

influenced. In many instances, in fact, they were 
really harmed by the treatment; frequently, after 
a short time, emaciation, states of excitement and 
all other symptoms of hyper-secretion of the 
thyroid gland were produced. Buschan has de- 
scribed several cases in which the administration 
of thyroid preparations based upon erroneous 
diagnosis of myxedema was followed by symp- 
toms of hyperthyroidism. 

In generalized myxedema, the earlier the thy- 
roid treatment is begun the more marked will be 
the improvement. If, after years of complete 
mental standstill, the cretinoid child gains the 
power of acquiring new psychic contents, there 
will still remain, notwithstanding the artificial 
replacement of thyroid function, a greater or less 
amount of backwardness, for, of course, all the 
missing advantages which would have been de- 
rived from a steady progressive mental growth 
can not be made up. This fact explains why it 
is that, while abandoned and neglected children, 
such, for instance, as the "Savage of the Avey- 
ron," even tho merely mentally retarded and not 
feeble-minded, may through proper care and in- 
struction be enabled to acquire an ideational 



330 CHILD TRAINING 

sphere which they have up to that time not 
known, they can under no circumstances attain 
an intellectual development corresponding to that 
which exists in others of their own age. The 
earlier the child is placed under treatment, the 
smaller will be the cleft which separates it from 
its normal associates of equal age and the greater 
the probability that the deficiencies in its mental 
development will gradually be remedied — pro- 
vided, of course, that these are not dependent 
upon organic brain defects. While the reports of 
the treatment of Mongoloid children with thyroid 
extract have been generally favorable, no con- 
clusive opinion as to its value is as yet warranted 
on account of the small number of such patients 
in whom this treatment has been applied. There- 
fore, for the present at any rate, the causal treat- 
ment of feeble-mindedness should include no more 
than the surgical removal of respiratory obstruc- 
tions in the naso-pharynx and the artificial re- 
placement of absent thyroid function. 



SYMPTOMATIC TREATMENT 331 

B. Symptomatic Treatment 
"Whereas causal therapy is a purely medical 
measure, the symptomatic treatment of the 
educable feeble-minded is a charge that devolves 
jointly upon physician and pedagog. Moreover, 
the field of activity for symptomatic treatment is 
a materially broader one, because it is not limited, 
as is causal therapy, to those forms of feeble- 
mindedness dependent upon functional disorder. 
That a satisfactory therapy can be established 
only upon the basis of a sound pathology scarcely 
requires demonstration. Whether the physician 
or the pedagog should direct the therapeutic 
training of the educable feeble-minded seems to 
me a futile question, so long as it be conceded 
that only the physician trained for the special 
purpose is the person who must determine the 
pathological conditions in each case, and must, 
from their specific peculiarities, deduce the in- 
dividual considerations which are to govern the 
therapeutic measures necessary for physical or 
mental betterment. After it has been ascertained, 
by means of the various methods of examination 
repeatedly mentioned (Wundt's law of the cor- 
respondence of fixation and apperception, and 



332 CHILD TRAINING 

Binet's intelligence tests), whether and to what 
extent a child is educable, there must be evolved 
a plan for its symptomatic treatment which will 
encompass the entire personality in a manner 
similar to that pursued in prophylactic training. 
While in the latter, however, the purpose from 
the very beginning was to direct the development 
of sensory activity and intelligence, the formation 
of character and will, into the proper paths and 
to counter-balance the developmental disorders of 
mild degree at a very early stage, in symptomatic 
treatment, dealing as it does with developmental 
disorders whose causes it is too late to remove, the 
efforts must be confined to a palliation of the 
existing symptoms. The only physical symptoms 
of interest to the pedagog are those which bear 
a relation to the mental sphere, while others, as, 
for instance, kyphosis, congenital dislocation of 
the hip, club-foot, and similar malformations, all 
so frequent in imbecile children, have an exclu- 
sively medical interest. In determining what can 
be accomplished in developing both body and 
mind in defective children according to the degree 
of their inferiority, the selection of the method 
of instruction and training is of extreme import- 



SYMPTOMATIC TREATMENT 333 

ance. No plan of procedure can be determined 
definitely in advance, because during the course 
of the symptomatic treatment, there may occur 
changes which could not have been foreseen. For 
that reason constant consideration must be given 
to the particular educational measures which are 
adapted for the moment to the existing require- 
ments. Solely through prolonged observation of 
the feeble-minded child will the pedagog be 
enabled so to arrange the plan of training and in- 
struction that it will adjust itself to the con- 
stantly altering conditions. This is a case in 
which practise must precede theory. If the edu- 
cator follows in practise a theory he has con- 
structed in advance, he may suffer the greatest 
disappointments, for symptoms and their proper 
treatment differ not only in different children but 
they also keep changing in each individual. 
Theoretical considerations may tempt the pedagog 
to proceed according to a pattern which he has 
previously constructed for other similarly affected 
children. If he does this, it is wrong, for the 
rule, derived from the practical training of nor- 
mal children, that pedagogic success is in great 
part dependent upon careful individualization, 



334 CHILD TRAINING 

applies to an even greater extent in the training 
of defective children. In the latter, in fact, it is 
imperative that the pedagog be not only thor- 
oughly conversant with the psychology of child- 
hood, but that he should also have learned there- 
from that no individual case should be judged 
deductively in accordance with any general theory. 
On the contrary, he must know that the plan of 
training should be based on the individual case, 
and that even then allowance must be made for 
the various phases which the same disorder of 
development will present at different times. 

The first aim of remedial pedagogy is to rid 
the feeble-minded child of those animal-like pecu- 
liarities which are due to an ascendency of the 
baser instincts and passions, and which give the 
idiot such a distinctive impress. It must always 
be borne in mind that the idiot, in a way, has 
not advanced beyond a lower stage of develop- 
ment. Much trouble will be encountered in the 
eradication of the often firmly rooted tendency to 
grimacing and facial contortions. Gymnastic 
movements will be found of value in freeing 
patients of their waddling gait, of the habit of 
rocking to and fro on chairs, and of other similar 



SYMPTOMATIC TREATMENT 335 

bad habits. An attempt to overcome their scream- 
ing and crying by means of auditory impressions 
is certainly worth while. Good results have been 
obtained in this way, especially through music. 
Biting the finger nails, chewing and tearing the 
clothes or other objects, must be watched care- 
fully and checked at once. The prevention of 
unclean acts with the body evacuations or the 
saliva requires unusual attention. Tireless cleans- 
ing after every soiling is imperative above all ; 
furthermore the greatest regularity in attending 
to the excretory needs of the body should be 
enjoined. 

Bed wetting renders much attention and train- 
ing necessary. The insensitiveness of the bladder 
to the stimulus produced by its distension, or the 
inadequate perception of this distension, may be 
counteracted by training. During the day the 
child must be encouraged to urinate at frequent 
and regular intervals; afterward the intervals 
must be systematically lengthened. No fluids 
should be given for several hours before bedtime 
and the child should be awakened regularly at 
a certain hour of the night for the purpose of 
urinating. 



336 CHILD TRAINING 

Bodily chastisement of feeble-minded children, 
with the purpose of combating their bad habits 
through the arousal of fear, is entirely inadmis- 
sible. As Heller justly remarks, nowhere else does 
inordinate use of punishment avenge itself more 
quickly than in the field of therapeutic training. 
Under no circumstances may the educator inflict 
punishment when angry. It is often a difficult 
task to remain perfectly composed when con- 
fronted with the varied bad habits of feeble- 
minded children; but he who always bears in 
mind that these habits are in great part symptoms 
of disease will treat his wards with proper justice 
and will punish them only when punishment is 
merited — that is, when the child's evil intent can 
be proved. And even then only such punish- 
ments are permissible as appeal to the honor and 
the emotions, such as a stern admonition, the 
rescinding of some privilege, etc. Under no cir- 
cumstances should corporal punishment be in- 
flicted. "Whipping, which formerly was considered 
indispensable in the training of normal as well 
as of mentally defective children, is in no way an 
educational measure. If it be resorted to with 
the idea of intimidating the child and thus forcing 



SYMPTOMATIC TREATMENT 337 

from it something which with the best of will the 
child can not give, it is an injustice of the greatest 
kind. Even where actual defects of character 
require correction, corporal punishment is likely 
to do harm instead of good. The confidence of 
children can be won more easily through kindness 
than through severity, and all sense of honor may 
well be stifled through the infliction of physical 
pain. Nervous and sensitive children may be- 
come so excited because of maltreatment that they 
will attempt to take their own lives; on the other 
hand, obtuse children either will not be influenced 
by corporal punishment or will be stirred to the 
most violent anger and brutal passion. 

Finally, we must remember that the production 
and endurance of physical pain are closely con- 
nected with the most deplorable manifestations of 
sexual degeneracy (Sadism and Masochism), and 
that corporal punishment occasionally is provoc- 
ative of masturbatory habits. Rousseau in his 
''Emile" does not suppress the confession that 
the onanistic aberrations of his youth were begun 
in consequence of blows upon the buttocks. 

In view of all these facts, it is perfectly clear 
that corporal punishment in the end will do more 



338 CHILD TRAINING 

harm than good, and all rational physicians and 
teachers will be found opposed to its use as a 
means of training normal children, to say nothing 
of the feeble-minded. 

Close study of their peculiarities will always 
disclose some other means of influencing obstrep- 
erous and feeble-minded children . Thus, De 
Moor recommends rest in bed after states of 
excitement. Seguin has given us a striking 
example of results, at first seemingly impossible, 
but finally brought about through persistent, 
patient endeavor. In his "Traitement" he tells 
us how he obtained ultimate control over a very 
excited, continuously restless idiot, by seating 
himself opposite the boy, holding the child's legs 
between his own knees and with one hand grasp- 
ing the boy's hands, and maintaining this position 
for five weeks, except the time devoted to eating 
and sleeping. "Wliether Seguin might have 
achieved the same result in a shorter time and 
more easily by means of persuasion and sugges- 
tion must remain a matter of conjecture. Wliile 
it is true that psychotherapy is a valuable aid in 
combating certain vices and bad habits of chil- 
dren, its use will always be confined to educable 



SYMPTOMATIC TREATMENT 339 

children because the existence of a state of 
dementia or outspoken psychosis of any kind will 
render impossible the establishment of the rap- 
port which is an absolute requisite in treatment 
by suggestion. Emphasis must be laid on the 
fact that psychotherapy and, more particularly, 
the use of hypnosis, are in the province of the 
physician alone. Under no circumstances should 
the pedagog undertake psychotherapeutic or hyp- 
notic experiments, unless he has had a profession- 
al medical training in addition to his pedagogic 
experience. Heller is right when he expresses 
sharp disapproval of the action of a German 
association of teachers a few years ago in adopt- 
ing the following resolutions: 

1. An intimate knowledge of suggestion, 
including hypnotism, is of incalculable value 
for the teacher and educator. 

2. It enables him better and more easily 
to fulfil his difficult task of instruction and 
training. 

3. A practical use of suggestion will often 
nip in the bud faults and bad habits which 
otherwise might lead to disorders of body 
and mind. 



340 CHILD TRAINING 

4. For these reasons the study of this 
branch of practical psychology is to be ad- 
vocated. 
These resolutions are in direct opposition to 
the best interests of the teaching profession. A 
theoretical knowledge of psychotherapy, as I 
have presented it in my book, certainly is of great 
value for every pedagog and for every cultured 
person. But where its practical application is 
concerned the teacher's motto if he would not 
endanger his entire authority, should be "hands 
off." This authority is of even greater import- 
ance in training weak-minded children than in 
educating normal ones. The belief that a pedagog 
of proved efficiency in the education of normal 
children must, as a matter of course, be as suc- 
cessful in training defective children, is one which 
is not upheld by the facts of experience. It is 
most astonishing what perspicacity the weak- 
minded often possess for the faults of those about 
them, and an educator who lays himself open to 
the just criticism of his wards will lose and never 
regain his influence over them. Experience 
teaches that those educators who meet their pupils 
with quiet determination and unrestricted author- 



SYMPTOMATIC TREATMENT 341 

ity will most easily win their affection and 
confidence. Even under such favorable circum- 
stances the discipline of feeble-minded children is 
most difficult, and if the psychotherapeutic at- 
tempts of the teacher fail, as they most certainly 
will, he must blame only himself for the incidental 
loss of authority, which is as inevitable as it will 
be permanent. 

Still another point which does not receive the 
consideration it merits from many pedagogs is 
worthy of attention. More than twenty years ago 
stress was laid by Koch upon the peculiar perio- 
dicity with which the mental development of ab- 
normal children takes place, a fact that has been 
corroborated by many observers since. This 
periodicity is characterized by steady mental 
growth during a short period, perhaps only for a 
few weeks, followed by a shorter or longer de- 
velopmental abeyance. Then there ensues an alter- 
nation of productive and unproductive periods, 
until mental development reaches a stage beyond 
which no further spontaneous progress is possible. 
Sometimes this mental periodicity is contingent 
upon physical development, sometimes it is not. 
Rhachitic children, for instance, often remain 



342 CHILD TRAINING 

backward, not only physically but also mentally. 
Such developmental inhibition, whether physical 
or mental, may be overcome in many instances by 
substituting better conditions of life (more 
nutritious food, more sanitary dwellings, etc.) for 
the existing ones. That this is so is shown by the 
good results obtained by placing rhachitie chil- 
dren in colonies, country homes, and similar wel- 
fare centers. The astonishing successes which are 
often noted in feeble-minded rhachitie children 
after a relatively short institutional treatment 
may also be due in part to improved hygienic 
surroundings. 

In many Mongoloid children we also encounter 
a development in stages, of both body and mind, 
and if that condition exists the children may, 
when subjected to thyroid medication, come out 
of the deepest dementia and remain afflicted only 
by a mild degree of imbecility. But, conditions 
are not always so favorable. Often the physical 
state of these children improves materially, but 
the betterment is unaccompanied by even an ap- 
proximate amelioration in the mental develop- 
ment. In such cases the favorable change in the 
bodily state is likely to lead parents and teachers 



SYMPTOMATIC TREATMENT 343 

to cling to a hope of spontaneous mental improve- 
ment and consequently to neglect proper remedial 
steps so long that the deterioration will reach a 
point where such self-deception is no longer pos- 
sible. Unfortunately, this passive expectation 
causes the loss of valuable years which, as I have 
previously stated, can not be compensated for 
even if later proper remedial pedagogic treatment 
be carried out. I have no doubt that in many 
of these children the periodicity in development 
may be transformed into a continuous develop- 
ment, provided the condition be recognized, in 
time. 

Here again arises the need for an admonition 
of the urgent necessity for harmonious coopera- 
tion between physician and pedagog. Children 
who are slightly mentally deficient need not be 
deprived of a public school training if, by means 
of special auxiliary classes, consideration be given 
to their limited qualifications. On the other hand, 
the therapeutic training of the lower grade psy- 
chopathic inferiorities, of the educable idiots, as 
well as of the neurasthenic, epileptic, hysteric or 
otherwise neuropathically tainted children, can 
be satisfactorily effected only in institutions 



344 CHILD TRAINING 

properly adapted to this purpose. It is self- 
evident that such institutions and their entire 
plan of instruction and training must be entirely 
different from those for the uneducable. 

In order to arrive at a correct diagnosis of 
feeble-mindedness, precise investigation must be 
made regarding the nature of the training which 
the child has already undergone. When this is 
done, we will often find that many of its pecu- 
liarities must be attributed essentially to the 
completely erroneous treatment it has received 
from parents or teachers. Culturable germs may 
have been present, and withered simply because 
they have been overlooked. On the other hand 
there may be discovered infirmities and faults 
which could easily have been smothered in the 
seed. Consequently, it is possible that upon super- 
ficial examination a feeble-minded child may give 
the impression of a low-grade idiot while a more 
careful investigation will reveal that the foes to 
its bodily and mental health are, so to speak, the 
weeds which in consequence of neglect have over- 
grown and throttled the culturable seeds. In 
consequence of erroneous treatment, then, there 
may be stimulated a mental state of inferiority 



SYMPTOMATIC TREATMENT 345 

which actually does not exist, and which, under 
proper treatment, will soon be replaced by a 
favorable expansion of the mind. But it is also 
possible that a training which has been directly 
aimed at the inculcation of good manners and 
other exteriorities may be the means of concealing 
a marked mental defect and of adroitly convey- 
ing the impression of an intellectuality which 
really does not exist. In many cases, therefore, it 
would be misleading were therapeutic education 
limited to a mere continuance and completion of 
the training inaugurated in the parental home. 
Only in exceptional cases is such continuance 
possible, while ordinarily an entirely new basis 
must be laid for the remedial teaching which the 
child is to receive. The amount of difficulty en- 
countered in doing this is a direct proportion to 
the injury previously done to the child by 
parental maltreatment or neglect. 

Before giving our attention to the special 
duties which devolve upon the person who under- 
takes the therapeutic training of feeble-minded 
children, let us understand why it is that the 
methods of training and instruction usually pro- 
ductive of good results in normal children are 



346 CHILD TRAINING 

only slightly or not at all applicable in the 
training of abnormal children. "We have pre- 
viously made the statement that the feeble-minded 
are individuals who have failed to advance beyond 
one of the lower stages of development. A mere 
comparison of a feeble-minded child with a normal 
one of lower age, however, does not suffice to 
make evident the difference between them. The 
question is not merely one of unequal intellectual 
development, but one of constitutional difference 
in mental organization. It is for this reason that 
the education of the feeble-minded child demands 
above all a clear appreciation of its psychic pecu- 
liarities and that the principles of education which 
are of proved value in pedagogy can never lead 
to satisfactory results in remedial training. Basic 
aims of all training of the feeble-minded must 
be the arousal of the attention, the development 
of the sensory and motor faculties and of the 
power of speech and the constant opposal of ab- 
normal impulses and habits. Further training 
must be guided principally in three directions. 
First, a certain sum of definite elementary 
knowledge must be acquired, and just as the 
methods employed in teaching normal children 



SYMPTOMATIC TREATMENT 347 

must be of the most intelligible and most practical 
kind, on account of the constant increase of 
instructional matter, so this elementary knowledge 
must be conveyed to the feeble-minded with the 
greatest simplicity. Next the complicated expres- 
sions of will and emotion must be purposefully 
developed. Finally, through the acquirement of 
mechanical skill, the basis must be laid for some 
future profitable employment. 

Let us cling to the idea that the task of thera- 
peutic training is to draw out from the feeble- 
minded child whatever it may have in it that 
can be developed. As a matter of course the 
results achieved by remedial pedagogy will differ 
materially. The aggregate amount of training 
which psychically defective children, according to 
the degree of their intelligence, are capable of 
acquiring occasionally approaches, but as a rule 
remains very far behind the normal. Since no 
abrupt lines of demarcation are present, and one 
stage of development blends almost indistinguish- 
ably into the next higher one, only that knowledge 
which combines the principles of physiological and 
of pathological development will enable the teacher 
to measure by means of a normal standard the 



348 CHILD TRAINING 

progress which has been obtained, and coinciden- 
tally to recognize the point beyond which peda- 
gogic influence can not pass. 

First, then, it must be determined whether the 
educable feeble-minded are to be instructed in 
groups or individually. Certainly, individual in- 
struction makes the greatest demands upon the 
pupil. During the entire period of instruction 
it exacts a maximal concentration of attention 
under which normal children become fatigued and 
the defective ones, of course, much more rapidly. 
This in turn renders the interposition of fre- 
quent rest periods necessary, and as a result, the 
continuity of instruction suffers constant disturb- 
ing interruptions. Individual instruction, there- 
fore, should be discarded in the training of weak- 
minded children, as it necessitates an amount of 
effort which the already feebly resistant child can 
not endure without injury. Then, too, on account 
of the necessary social training it carries with it, 
the instruction side by side of several children of 
about the same grade of intelligence is to be 
recommended. In a small group of children, the 
individuality of each may receive the requisite 
consideration while no single one is kept directly 



SYMPTOMATIC TREATMENT 349 

and constantly occupied. The teacher, through 
being obliged to give consideration to the pecu- 
liarities of different pupils, constantly derives new 
impressions from the instruction matter and is 
thus led to stimulative repetitions which must be 
lacking when children are instructed individually. 
Such group instruction is decidedly more success- 
ful than the usual public school instruction, be- 
cause the latter, on account of the large number 
of children in each class, is scarcely able to give 
consideration to the individual pupil. 

Experience has demonstrated that, on account 
of the marked tendency to fatigue shown by all 
psychopathically inferior children, no single in- 
struction period in any one subject should be 
extended beyond half an hour. Longer periods 
are not only futile but also may cause the chil- 
dren to suffer nervous breakdown. The rest 
periods which succeed the half-hour instruction 
periods should not be devoted to physical exer- 
cises, for, as has already been said, physical 
exertion following mental work does not relieve 
but actually increases fatigue. It is also conceded 
that the hours of the forenoon should be devoted 
to the more fatiguing lessons, while the afternoon 



350 CHILD TRAINING 

periods are to be reserved for mechanical pursuits 
in which frequent repetition and practise are 
main considerations. Home work should not be 
given to the feeble-minded children, as it may 
in some way restrict their opportunity for inde- 
pendent observation. The physiological principle 
of effort and repose demands of the normal child 
brain effort preeminently while of the mentally 
defective child it exacts above all brain rest. 
Even for healthy pupils home work implies 
mental exertion to the limit of their capabilities, 
while for defective pupils such work actually is 
directly harmful. We should not forget that 
overburdening is a much more serious matter in 
defective children than in , normal ones. The 
latter under favorable conditions soon regain their 
power of resistance, but the enervation of the 
weaklings grows and becomes permanent. 

As I have said elsewhere, mental relaxation and 
exercise are of direct educational value. The 
necessity for relaxation and exercise, for effort 
and repose, is proved by the fact that the func- 
tional capability of every organ suffers as much 
through inactivity as through overactivity. An 
organ wastes away when it is not called into 



SYMPTOMATIC TREATMENT 351 

action at all, just as surely as it wastes away 
when excessive demands are made upon it. This 
is quite as true of the brain, the organ of the 
mind, as of the muscles and other organs of the 
body. 

Relaxation or repose of an organ consists in 
relieving that organ, so far as possible, of the 
part which it takes in the operations of the 
general organism, and facilitating those activities 
of which it can not be relieved. In bringing about 
relaxation or repose, therefore, we endeavor to put 
the entire body in a state in which as few demands 
as possible will be made upon the affected organ, 
and those only under conditions as favorable to 
that organ as they can be made. By exercise, on 
the other hand, we understand all those means 
which will cause an organ to accomplish more 
than previously, the increased activity, however, 
being not the result of a single output of energy 
due to strong stimuli, but an evidence of per- 
manently augmented effectiveness. In such effect- 
iveness lies the difference between increased 
activity due to stimulation and that caused by 
exercise or training. A sharp dividing line does 
not exist, since stimulation of an organ naturally 



352 CHILD TRAINING 

will cause an exercise of function. Different 
individuals react differently to the same kind of 
stimulation; the stimulus which is physiological 
for one person may be pathological for another. 
All exercise produces fatigue and thus necessitates 
recuperation. When recuperation takes place in 
a perfect manner, the organ exerted becomes 
slightly more capable than it was at first; but if 
recuperation is inadequate, the organ is weakened 
and not strengthened through exertion. To find 
the happy medium of exercise regulated according 
to individual requirements is a task which the 
physician can accomplish only if he has the 
proper appreciation of the patient's varying 
powers of adjustment. 

Observation should constitute the nucleus of all 
instruction of the feeble-minded. The instruction 
matter derived from the pupils' own experiences 
— from that which has occurred and from that 
which has been observed — undoubtedly is of 
greatest value for their training. So far as pos- 
sible, all observation should begin with the 
natural objects themselves. Household materials, 
eatables, etc., are to be actually shown to the 
children; other things which can not be so easily 



SYMPTOMATIC TREATMENT 353 

procured should at least be shown in picture or 
model. Because the value of observation is in- 
creased by effort, an impression gained through a 
long walk in the open air, will not be so easily for- 
gotten as one brought directly to the child. Trees, 
vegetables, flowers, and fruits must be designated 
and stress laid upon the characteristic marks of 
different animals. At the same time the signifi- 
cance of the things shown should be explained and 
the foundation thereby laid for an understanding 
of cause and purpose. So far as possible questions 
are to be answered by demonstrating the object or 
action about which information is sought. Show 
how wheat, flour, bread are obtained. Show whence 
is derived the material for our clothes, whence 
come wool and meat, whence the egg, milk, butter, 
etc. The study of arithmetic, causing most fatigue, 
must be looked upon as the chief stumbling-block 
for the training of the feeble-minded. Counting 
should be taught by making use of tangible objects 
as, for instance, the small balls of the counting 
frame. Counting upon the fingers is often a great 
instructional aid. Concrete examples should, so 
far as is possible, constitute the basis for practise. 
"We have already remarked upon the astonishing 



354 CHILD TRAINING 

memory for figures possest by weak-minded chil- 
dren, but this one-sided development is accom- 
panied only rarely by any arithmetical aptitude, so 
that in the feeble-minded the most pronounced 
deficiencies are those pertaining to numbers and 
figuring. Voisin describes how the child should be 
made to give money in payment for candies and 
then to receive money in change, thereby acquiring 
the notion of subtraction. Practical assistance may 
be derived from Herterieh's folding closet which 
serves as a store counter. At this the children 
alternately assume the roles of storekeeper and 
customer, weigh and measure the various wares, 
pay for their purchases with real money and, by 
means of the prices, which are based upon condi- 
tions in real business, are familiarized with prac- 
tical life and with its simplest necessary arith- 
metical operations. The children who in play thus 
learn something of concrete calculation and acquire 
some knowledge of goods, coins, weights, and meas- 
ures, should at the same time be taught that the 
money which has served them for purchasing the 
necessaries of life must first be earned by means 
of work. Abstract figuring, on the other hand, is 
usually beyond the intellectual capability of most 



SYMPTOMATIC TREATMENT 355 

feeble-minded children. Success in instructing the 
feeble-minded is essentially dependent upon the 
teacher's skill in making the lessons as simple and 
as practical as possible, in basing his explanations 
upon as few abstract ideas as possible and in per- 
mitting the children themselves to discover as 
much as possible of what they are to find. Under 
no circumstances should the teacher, through 
severity or any other stimulus, attempt to force 
the child to overcome the feeling of fatigue pro- 
duced by the lesson; he should interrupt the in- 
struction and interpose a period of rest as soon as 
the child's loss of interest shows it is tired. 

Only the teacher born to his profession possesses 
the perspicacity requisite for all this. Especially 
is this true in relation to the art of individualiza- 
tion. Even if there is no necessity for elaborating 
totally different methods of instruction for the 
apathetic and the erethismic imbeciles, and the 
same remedial pedagogic influences may be equally 
effective in training stolid or excitable children, 
still the fact that these wards possess individual 
psychic peculiarities does furnish cause for fre- 
quent variations of treatment. It is the teacher 
who is imbued with his mission that will always 



356 CHILD TRAINING 

have due regard for the pupils' individual require- 
ments and will be able to find what is suited to 
their respective capabilities. He will require no 
detailed rules of action or procedure but will be 
able, under all circumstances, to select his own 
path. For this reason I have refrained from 
giving details regarding the various methods of in- 
structing the feeble-minded and have confined my- 
self to an elucidation of the general principles 
which must govern all instruction based upon psy- 
chological laws. Any one who has grasped the 
principles of prophylactic training will have no 
difficulty in properly understanding therapeutic 
training by means of a judicious apportionment of 
effort and repose. 

A thing that is still more difficult than an im- 
plantation of knowledge is the exertion of remedial 
control upon the will and the emotions. In the 
normal child intense emotion may often be utilized 
as an actual means of training, while in the feeble- 
minded this means is lacking because all emotions 
of such children are usually superficial and fleet- 
ing. Weygandt very properly says the teacher 
whose fingers would grasp a rod at every dis- 
obedience of a feeble-minded pupil had better cease 



SYMPTOMATIC TREATMENT 357 

occupying himself with pathological children. Un- 
fortunately even some physicians recommend a 
whipping for the restless, the inactive, or the 
fractious feeble-minded child. 

It is most difficult to arouse the more complicated 
emotions, and even the most painstaking efforts in 
this direction are rarely successful. On the other 
hand, a combat against unpleasing and abnormal 
emotional manifestations is very frequently neces- 
sary. The lower stage upon which the development 
of the feeble-minded has been arrested shows itself 
among other things by the persistence of inordinate 
egotism. In them, the pleasure of others arouses 
no response, the distress of others no sympathy. 
For this reason the feeble-minded child itself must 
be placed in the foreground of every story told with 
the purpose of inculcating any moral idea. 

The child's own experiences must serve as a 
starting point from which may be elaborated 
situations which the child will recognize as true. 
By bringing the feeble-minded child into close rela- 
tion with elementary moral notions, and utilizing 
its imagination in order to make these ideas appear 
to be part of what it has already experienced, we 
may ultimately be able so to influence it that its 



358 CHILD TRAINING 

acts will be governed by moral motives. The 
opinion that every feeble-minded individual must 
act unmorally, because such action is directly de- 
pendent upon its psychic disposition, is undoubt- 
edly wrong. On the contrary, the majority of 
feeble-minded children are morally culturable. To 
inculcate feelings of altruism in psychically de- 
fective children, it is advantageous to entrust 
flowers and growing plants to their care and there- 
by to instil in their minds a feeling of pleasure at 
the growth and prosperity of other things than 
themselves. Very many feeble-minded children 
show a touching sympathy for the growing plants 
confided to them. They always water them at the 
proper time, carefully remove every withered leaf, 
see that they have ample light and air, and thus 
acquire those feelings of compassion and sympathy 
to which they have previously been strangers. To 
confide small domestic animals to the care of feeble- 
minded children is not advisable on account of 
their proclivity to torment and to tease. If the 
educator knows how to divert the excessive self- 
love of the child from itself to plants or other 
objects, he will find the child showing greater at- 
tachment to him and obeying more willingly. 



SYMPTOMATIC TREATMENT 359 

• The fluctuations of emotion, which are so char- 
acteristic, can he influenced only with the greatest 
difficulty, and the pathological aberrations of char- 
acter so often encountered usually resist every 
therapeutic influence. The exacting, moody, quar- 
relsome behavior of imbeciles and hysterics, their 
pathologically distorted egotism and their phan- 
tastic untruthfulness will render fruitless all efforts 
to call forth in them a sense of responsibility. At 
most, a certain automatic adaptation to disciplinary 
measures may sometimes be obtained. In hysterical 
children disordered sensations may occasionally be 
eliminated without waking suggestions or hypnosis, 
by disconcerting and bewildering the child through 
an energetic command. The child is so astonished 
at the severity of the measure adopted and its 
immediate effect that the idea of illness passes and 
does not return. Then, too, in hysterics the em- 
ployment of suggestive measures conveyed under 
the guise of some actual treatment is often most 
effective. Sometimes the best results are attained 
by completely ignoring the children's feeling of 
illness, by accepting no excuse and holding them 
entirely responsible for their actions. Only in that 
way can the will-power of neuropathically tainted 



360 CHILD TRAINING 

individuals be strengthened so they will be enabled 
to overcome their diseased tendencies and impulses. 

Of no less importance is the problem of convey- 
ing to the educable feeble-minded, in addition to 
certain elementary moral conceptions and the 
scanty knowledge which they may obtain in school, 
certain acquirements which will be of practical use 
to them in their later life. The attempt should at 
least be made to teach them some vocation. A good 
preparation for such teaching is furnished espe- 
cially by separable models, because through them 
may be obtained an understanding of the individual 
mechanism. Joining one part to another into a 
whole trains the power of combination and, through 
awakening reflections leads to the discovery of the 
means necessary to attain a certain end, thus guid- 
ing the feeble-minded child to freedom and inde- 
pendence. Nowhere is this shown to better advan- 
tage than in the Montessori method. 

Simultaneously with other instruction a certain 
training in mechanical dexterity should be under- 
taken. In the beginning this may be restricted to 
the performance of household work. In conformity 
with their greater bodily strength, boys should be 
urged to do the heavier work, such as carrying 



SYMPTOMATIC TREATMENT 361 

coal, chopping wood, etc., while girls should be 
induced to knit, sew, clean the house, cook, wash, 
etc. Later the children should, if possible, be 
employed in the field and garden, as well as in 
the workshop. The feeble-minded of higher grade 
may be trained as shoemakers, tailors, locksmiths, 
carpenters or bookbinders, those of the lower grade 
as basket or carpet weavers, rope and broom 
makers. For the lower grade of educable idiots 
pursuits as simple and unvarying as possible 
should be selected, such as stable cleaning, wood 
chopping and shoveling in the field and garden, 
because these occupations, being more easily re- 
membered, sooner become automatic, and because 
they are markedly advantageous from the point of 
view of bodily hygiene. 

All feeble-minded children can be trained in these 
various ways, some more, some less effectively, in 
accordance with the developmental capacity they 
respectively possess. Decidedly the most difficult 
parts of the task are the first awakening of the 
attention, without which no training in the use of 
the sensory and motor apparatus can begin, and 
the first instruction in speech. Training of the 
feeble-minded is often hindered by the two follow- 



362 CHILD TRAINING 

ing circumstances: First, it requires a greater 
teaching force than we usually have at our disposal ; 
and secondly, a larger number of institutions re- 
ceive only children above a certain age, usually 
from five years upward, so that a certain time is 
lost during which, in the absence of proper home 
training, the natural state of the child will easily 
become more fixt as a result of which all future 
treatment will be rendered more difficult. Let us 
conclude this chapter, then, by reiterating the ad- 
monition that weak-minded or neuropathically 
tainted children should be placed in an institution 
as soon as possible, in a public one if necessary, or, 
if the parent's means permit, in a more advan- 
tageously organized private one. 



II. THE UNEDUCABLE 

Not always does therapeutic training succeed in 
enabling the feeble-minded to provide for their 
own maintenance and render them capable of going 
about without supervision. Some children, who in 
the beginning showed a certain educability, later — 
and usually around the period of puberty — retro- 
grade and lose much of the knowledge they had 
acquired. Frequently even a brief change of sur- 
roundings, with its interruption of remedial in- 
fluences, will be sufficient to cause the idiotic child 
to fall back into the stage of hopeless uneducability. 
When it becomes clear that all further attempts at 
education will be futile, the institutional treatment 
will necessarily be restricted to constant care and 
supervision. / 

In the chapter on prophylactic training, I have 
shown that we must endeavor by every means to 
prevent the birth of children who, according to all 
human foresight, will be obliged as degenerates to 
lead lives of misery. I have also said that I even 
consider so drastic a measure as artificial steriliza- 
363 



364 CHILD TRAINING 

tion justified, and that the prospects for the pre- 
vention of feeble-mindedness and of the trans- 
mission of hereditary taints will become the more 
hopeful the more actively the battle is waged 
against alcoholism and syphilis. 

It may not be irrelevant to consider what object 
there can be in keeping alive, by means of insti- 
tutional care, individuals who can never be of any 
worth to human society but, on the contrary, con- 
stitute a decided burden. Some persons may say 
the sacrifice of time, trouble, and money for the 
care of the infirm and the sick represents senseless 
extravagance when once it has been shown there is 
no hope of restoring the afflicted ones to good 
health. As a matter of fact such objections have 
been raised by the extreme advocates of race 
hygiene. We should not forget, however, that 
warm sympathy calls for a procedure different from 
what cold reason is likely to demand. The same 
compassion that tells us that we must endeavor to 
prevent the birth of children predestined to misery 
by the inexorable laws of nature, directs us, when 
such unfortunates are already here, to alleviate 
their pitiful conditions as far as possible. These 
wretched beings are not the cause of their own 



THE UNEDUCABLE 365 

misery, and for this reason it is our duty all the 
more to endeavor to lighten their burdens. Human 
happiness by no means represents a state in which 
there is complete freedom from wishes and desires, 
but is based in great part upon the satisfaction 
which is the result of good actions. That which is 
noblest and highest in man, and which can be 
aroused in the feeble-minded only with the greatest 
difficulty — the feeling of altruism — would neces- 
sarily shrink and disappear were there no suffer- 
ing in the alleviation of which it could exert itself. 
The more wretchedness and suffering we have about 
us the more ardent is our altruistic desire to afford 
help and to bring pleasure to the miserable. 

In every idiot, no matter how uneducable, there 
is something to be rescued. By proper care for 
his physical well-being, he can be raised from his 
inhuman, animal-like state, to a condition worthy 
of a human being. No idiot is so low-grade that 
he can not feel some contentment when kept clean, 
when properly fed and when kept occupied with 
some simple task. There is another important 
point that must not be overlooked. Every un- 
educable idiot is irresponsible; he can not be held 
accountable for his deeds. "When left free and 



366 CHILD TRAINING 

unrestrained he may easily become a menace to 
himself and to others. When he is kept in an in- 
stitution both he and the public are guarded against 
danger. It is becoming more and more generally 
recognized that a well-conducted institution for 
idiots becomes a veritable haven of safety for those 
pitiable creatures, who, altho they have given 
nothing to the world, altho they have in no wise 
helped in the progress of civilization by useful 
work, are nevertheless entitled to all possible con- 
sideration on account of the sins which mankind 
has committed against them. -< 

While the idiot who has tendencies toward out- 
breaks of violence must be placed in an institution, ^ 
the harmless may receive family care. Yet, before 
deciding the latter as satisfactory, we should always 
consider that the mere physical care of these poor 
creatures requires an amount of patience rarely 
possest even by their own relatives. Moreover, the 
relatives of such children as a rule, have not the 
least idea which idiosyncrasies require special at- 
tention and therefore, notwithstanding all solici- 
tude and affection, they may cause damage instead 
of benefit. There can be no doubt that all un- 
educable idiots, whether violent or not, will be best 



THE UNEDUCABLE 367 

cared for in a well-managed institution under the 
care of an able psychiatrist until the time when 
they must be transferred to a hospital for the adult 
insane or until death puts an end to an existence 
in which perhaps the only ray of light has been 
the gratification caused by the care and attention 
received. 



PART SIXTH 
CONCLUSION 

Before concluding the inquiry which has formed 
the subject matter of this book, let us again briefly 
note the main points, A survey of the course 
which medico-pedagogic investigation has taken 
shows that all success in training and instruction 
is based upon a knowledge of the experimental 
psychology of childhood. The gradual develop- 
ment of this branch of science from its crude be- 
ginnings to its present precision has been clearly 
shown. Its nucleus is the doctrine of psycho- 
physical parallelism, in accordance with which 
every psychic manifestation of life must be accom- 
panied by a physical movement or a change in the 
central nervous system. This phenomenon takes 
place under normal and under pathological con- 
ditions. - 

To be able to differentiate health from disease, 
to be able correspondingly to adjust the necessary 

369 



370 CHILD TRAINING 

prophylactic or therapeutic influences, to be able 
to individualize in the care and training of neuro- 
pathic children on the borderline of health and 
disease, are tasks which can be satisfactorily accom- 
plished only by the harmonious cooperation of the 
physician and the professional educator. Trans- 
itions from the normal to the pathological often 
occur so insidiously as to escape the unpractised 
eye. While it might therefore seem desirable for 
the principals of schools and training institutions 
to have a professional medical education, and for 
the physicians who are called upon to supervise the 
hygiene of our schools to have a pedagogic training, 
we can not demand too much, and must for the 
present, at any rate, rest content if both educator 
and physician recognize physiological and patho- 
logical psychology as being common ground from 
which the development of the child is to be ob- 
served and determined. 

While I am willing to leave it an open question 
whether training institutions for the educable 
feeble-minded should be under pedagogic or under 
medical supervision, I must maintain that all in- 
stitutions for the uneducable idiot, in which the 
sole question is one of regulating the lives of the 



CONCLUSION 371 

children in accordance with the principles of 
medicine and hygiene, should be under the direc- 
tion exclusively of specialistically educated phy- 
sicians. 

The present day development of pedagogy, as 
well as of medicine and other sciences, has shown 
that nothing is so difficult as to free ourselves from 
the prejudices which obscure our vision and give 
all our observations a false aspect. The mainte- 
nance of apriori theories, notwithstanding practical 
proof of their incorrectness, made it impossible for 
pedagogy to attain anything but scanty results 
whenever it dealt with children who did not fit 
into the previously constructed mold. This same 
bias is the cause of the cruel treatment which the 
feeble-minded received as late as a century ago 
and explains why they were neglected, permitted 
to degrade both mentally and physically, tortured 
by harsh physical punishment and driven into 
vagrancy or prostitution. Since we have shaken 
off these deep-rooted prejudices and have come to 
realize that humanity for centuries has allowed 
artificial and fantastic theories to stand in its own 
light, we have also learned to recognize matters as 
they actually are. To-day we know that all natural 



372 CHILD TRAINING 

processes take their course in accordance with the 
law of cause and effect and we have so studied this 
relationship that we are able to make use of it for 
our own advantage. As applied to pedagogy it 
means that the methods of instruction deduced 
from the natural laws of the child's development 
enables us, notwithstanding a limited brain capa- 
bility, to augment man's efficiency so as to fulfil 
the demands made by cultural progress and to do 
this without overtaxing the normally constituted 
child. But it also means that in the psychopathi- 
cally tainted child much more can be saved than 
ever was dreamed of by older pedagogy, and that 
many more such children can be brought up to 
become useful individuals than we formerly thought 
possible. The sacrifice of time, money, and effort 
in behalf of prophylactic and therapeutic education 
is by no means an unfruitful investment ; it returns 
manifold interest if in no other way in the con- 
stantly growing causal treatment of deficient chil- 
dren. 



LITERATURE 

1. Bateson (W.), "Mendel's Principles of Heredity," 
Cambridge, 1913. 

2. Bayon, "Beitrag zur Diagiiose und Lehre vom Kreti- 
nismus unter besonderer Beriieksiehtigung der Dif- 
ferential-Diagnose mit anderem Zwergwuehs und 
Schwaehsinn," Wiirzburg, 1903. 

3. Berkhan (0.), "Der Angeborene und friih erworbene 
Schwaehsinn," Braunschweig, 1904. 

4. Binet (A. and Simon), "Les enfants anormaux," 
Paris, 1907. 

5. Boumeville (D. M.), "Du traitment ehirurgical de 
Fidiotie," Arch, de Neurologie, 1892. 

6. Bresgen (M.), "Ueber die Bedeutung behinderter 
Nasenathmung," Hamburg, 1890. 

7. Broadbent ("W. H.), The Lancet, January and Feb- 
ruary, 1874. 

8. Buschan (G.), "Das Myxcedem und verwandte 
Zustaende," Leipzig, 1896. 

9. Bullard (W. N.), "Mongolian Idiocy," Boston Med. 

and Surgical Journal, Jan. 12, 1911. 

10, Clouston (T, S.), Journal of Mental Science, Lon- 
don, 1888. P. 335. 

11. Gushing (Harvey), "Concerning Surgical Interven- 
tion for Cranial Hemorrhage in the New-born," 
American Journal of the Medical Sciences, Oct. 1905. 

373 



374 CHILD TRAINING 

12. Gushing (Harvey), "The Special Tield of Neuro- 
logical Surgery. Five Years Later," John Hopkins 
Hospital Bulletin, Vol. XXI, No. 236, Nov., 1910. 

13. Dearborn, "Moto-Sensory Development," Baltimore, 
1910. 

14. Demme, "Ueber den Einfluss des Alkohols auf den 
Organismus des Kindes," Leipzig, 1902. 

15. Demoor, "Die anomalen Kinder und ihre erziebliche 
Behandlung in Haus und Sehule," Altenburg, 1901. 

16. Dubois-Reymond, "Ueber die Uebung," Berlin, 1881. 

17. Friedjung, "Die Pathologie des einzigen Kindes," 
Wien, 1911, p. 40, Chapter III. 

18. Fuchs (Arno), "Schwaehsinnige Kinder," Gutersloh, 
1912. 

19. Gaupp, "Die Psychologic des Kindes," Leipzig, 1908. 

20. Goddard, "New Jersey Training-school for Feeble- 
Minded Boys and Girls." 22nd Annual Report, 1910. 

21. Gregor, "Leitfaden der experimentalen Pathologie," 
Berlin, 1910. 

22. Groszmann (M. P. E.), "The Career of the Child," 
Boston (no date). 

23. Guggenbiihl, "Die Heilung und Verhiitung des 
Cretinismus luid ihre neuesten Fortschritte," Bern, 
1853. 

24. Gulick (L. H.), "Mechanotherapy," Philadelphia, 
1904. 

25. Hecker (Edward), "Die Hebephrenie. Ein Beitrag 
zur Klinischen Psychiatrie," Virchow's Archiv., 
1871, Heft 3, p. 394. 

26. Also Munchener Med. Wochenschrift, 1902, No. 
46. 



LITERATURE 375 

27. Heller (Theodore), "Grundriss der Heilpadagogik," 
Leipzig, 1912. 

28. Heller (Theodore), "Die Psychologie und Psyehopa- 
thologie des Kindes," Wien, 1911. 

29. Heller (Theodore), "Sohwachsimiigenforsehung, 
FUrsorge, Erziehung und Heilpadagogik," Halle, 
1909. 

30. Holmes (Arthur), "The Conservation of the Child," 
Philadelphia, 1912. 

31. Holmes (Edmond), "What Is and What Might Be," 
London, 1912. 

32. Jaeoby (George W.), 'TiUmbar Puncture of the 
Subarachnoid Space," N. Y. Med. Journal, Dec. 23, 
1895, and Jan. 4, 1896. 

33. Jaeoby (George W.), "Suggestion and Psychother- 
apy," N. Y., 1912. 

34. Jaeoby (George W.), "The Montessori Method from 
a Physician's Viewpoint," Medical Record, April 
19, 1913. 

35. Jaeoby (George W.), "A Colony Sanatorium for the 

Nervous and Neurasthenic," New York Medical 
Journal, April 18, 1908. 

36. Kirehoff, "Geschichte der deutschen Irrenpflege," 
Berlin, 1890. 

37. Koch (J. L. A.), "Die psychopathischen Minderwer- 
thigkeiten," Ravensburg, 1891. 

38. Ladd (Geo. Trumbull), "Elements of Physiological 
Psychology," New York, 1911. 

39. Lange, "Ueber Kraempfe im Kindesalter," Miln- 
chener Medizinische Wochenscrift, 1900. 



376 CHILD TRAINING 

40. Loewenstein, "Ueber mikrocephalische Idiotie und 
ihre chirurgische Behandlung nach Lannelongue," 
Beitrag zur Klinischen CMrurgie, Bd. 26, Heft 1. 

41. Moeller, "Ueber Intelligenzprufungen," Berlin, 1897. 

42. Montessori (Maria), "The Montessori Method." 
Translated by Anne E. George, 2nd edition, New 
York, 1912. 

43. Myers, "A Text-Book of Experimental Psychology 
with Laboratory Exercises," Cambridge, 1911. 

44. Oppenheim (H.), "Nervenleiden und Erziehung," 
Berlin, 1899. 

45. Pilcz, "Ein weiterer Beitrag zur Lehre von der 
Mikrocephalie," JahrhiicJier fiir Psychiatrie und 
Neurologie, Bd. 18, Heft 3. 

46. Preyer. "Die Seele des Elindes," Leipzig, 1895. 

47. Pyles, "The Outlines of Educational Psychology," 
Baltimore, 1911. 

48. Reil (Joan Christianus), "Rhapsodien ueber die 
Anwendung der psychischen Kurmethode auf 
Geistes Zerruttung," 1803. 

49. Rehn, "Verhandlungen des V. Congresses fiir innere 
Medizin," 1886. 

50. Scholz (L.),"Anomale Kinder," Berlin, 1912. 

51. Seguin (Edouard), "Idiocy and its Treatment by 
the Physiological Method," New York, 1866. 

52. Seguin (Edouard), "New Facts and Remarks Con- 
cerning Idiocy," New York, 1870. 

53. Seguin (Edouard), "Traitement moral, hygiene et 
education des idiots et des autres enfants arrieres," 
Paris, 1846. 



LITERATURE 377 

54. Smith (A. T.), "The Montessori System of Educa- 
tion," Washington, 1912. 

55. Smith (T. L.), "The Montessori System in Theory 
and Practise," New York, 1912. 

56. Sommer, "Lehrbuch der psycho-pathologischen Unter- 
suchungsmethodeu," Berlin, 1907. 

57. Spencer (Herbert), "Education — Intellectual, Moral 
and Physical," London, 1903. 

58. Strohmayer, "Vorlesungen ueber die Psychopatho- 
logie des Kindesalters," Tiibingen, 1910. 

59. Troemmer, "Das Jugendirresein (Dementia Prffi- 
cox)," Halle, 1900. 

60. Weygandt, "Die Behandlung der idiotischen und 
imbezielen Kinder," Wiirzburg, 1900. 

61. Wille, "Die Psychosen des Pubertaetsalters," Leip- 
zig, 1898. 



INDEX 



Abendberg, 18. 

Abnormal individuals, Atten- 
tion in, 57, 58. 

Activity, involuntary, 47, 48. 

Activity, mental, 49. 

Activity, sensory, development 
of, 229. 

Adenoid vegetations, 4, 156. 

Aesthesiometric test, 128. 

Agrammatism, 118. 

Alcoholism, see Parents. 

Alcoholism and Idiocy, 187. 

Aphasia, 79, 208. 

Aphasia, cortical motor, 79. 

Apperception, 55, 113, 179, 
183. 

Aprosexia, 154. 

Arithmetic, in the training of 
the feeble-minded, 353. 

Art, the nude in, 309. 

Arteriosclerosis, 67. 

Asexualization, 222. 

Association fibers, 41. 

Asylums for feeble-minded, 16. 

Ataxia, 268. 

Athletics, 256. 

Attention, 54, 56. 

Attention, active, 180. 

Attention, development of, 
241. 

Attention, exemplification of, 
56. 

Attention, in abnormal indi- 
viduals, 57, 58. 

Attention, in idiocy, 199. 

Attention, passive, 180. 

Atypical children, 213. 

Atypical children and the 
public schools, 288. 

Atypical children to be re- 
moved from their homes, 248. 

Authority, the child's rever- 
ence for, 305. 



Auxiliary classes, 230. 
Aveyron, Savage of the, 21. 

Bateson, 87. 

Bathing. 250. 

Bedwetting, treatment of, 335. 

Bentley, Alys E., 273. 

Bergmann, 324. 

Berkhan, 172, 226. 

Bicetre, 22. 

Binet age, 125. 

Binet-Simon test, 116, 123. 

Biogenesis, fundamental law 

of, 80. 
Bircher, 161. 

Blindness, congenital, 174. 
Bodily development, 243. 
Body and mind, relation of, 

251. 
Border-line children, 219. 
Bourneville, 187. 
Brachydactylism, 86. 
Brain, 34. 

Brain, automatic activity, 57. 
Brain, composition, 35. 
Brain, exhaustibility of, 62. 
Brain, fatigability of, 115. 
Brain, fissures of, 36. 
Brain, localization, 34. 
Brain, puncture of, 324. 
Broadbent, 278. 
Bruehl, 156. 
Bullard, 169. 
Buschan, 329. 

Cachexia Thyreopriva. 165. 
Carnegie, Andrew, 300. 
Cerebellum, 35, 36. 
Cerebellum, ganglion cells of, 

64. 
Cerebrospinal fluid, pressure 

of, 193. 
Character, defects of, 10. 
Character, moral, 110. 



379 



380 



INDEX 



Chastisement of feeble-minded 
children, 336. 

Child, association with grown- 
up people, 293. 

Child, character formation of, 
303. 

Child, egotism, 108. 

Child, individuality of, 3, 5. 

Child imagination, 105. 

Child suicide, 309. 

Child, the only, 293. 

Clouston, 198. 

Companionship, influence of, 
293. 

Conduct, moral, 111. 

Constancy, law of, 82. 

Convulsions, 195. 

Coordination, 97, 262. 

Coordination, mechanism of, 
267. 

Coordination through gymnas- 
tics, 253. 

Corpus Callosum, 36. 

Craniectomy, 323. 

Cretinism, 157-162. 

Cretinism, surgical, 164. 

Cretinism, symptoms of, 19. 

Cretinism, thyroid feeding In, 
326. 

Cretinism, treatment of, 27. 

Cretins, ethical deficiency in, 
167. 

Dalcroze, 261. 

Darwinism, 81. 

Dead speech, 151. 

Deafness, congenital, 174. 

Deaf-muteness, 177. 

Degenerates, laws against mar- 
riage of, 222. 

Degeneration and regenera- 
tion, 145. 

Dementia, premature, 197. 

Dementia, senile, 66. 

Dendrites, 41. 

De Sanctis, 127. 

Development by stages, 97. 

Development, bodily, 243. 

Development, dependent upon 
apperception, 183. 

Development, intellectual, of 
the child, 95, 275. 



Development of mental life, 
100. 

Dietetics, 245. 

Displeasure, feeling of, in chil- 
dren, 107. 

Domrich, 187. 

Drawing, 281. 

Dreams. 71. 

Educability as a basis for 

classification, 332. 
Egotism in children, 108. 
Egotism, natural, 304. 
Emotional life, 107. 
Environment, influence of, 248. 
Esthesiometer, 128. 
Eurythmy, 261. 
Evolution and mental life, 96. 
Evolution, principle of, 100. 
Example, power of, 109. 
Exorcism, 16. 

Fairy tales, 105. 
Fantasy, 105. 

Fatigue and gymnastics, 258 
Fatigue, brain, 115. 
Fatigue, degree of, 56 
Fatigue measurements, 129, 
Fear, states of, during gym- 
nastics upon apparatus, 268. 
Feeble-minded, asylums for, 16. 
Feeble-minded, chastisement of, 

336. 
Feeble-minded, classification of, 

125. 
Feeble-mindedness, 8, 16, 20, 

24. 
Feeble-mindedness, acquired, 

186. 
Feeble-mindedness, congenital, 

187. 
Feeble-mindedness, convulsions 

as a cause of, 195. 
Feeble-mindedness, secondary, 

194. 
Ferrus, 22. 
Fixation point. 113. 
Fixation text, 181. 
Fodderg. 158. 
Fresh air, 249. 
Friedjung, 294. 
Froebel, 5, 230. 
Functional disorders, 210. 



INDEX 



381 



Ganglion cells, 38, 40, 41, 44. 

Ganglion cells, motor, 43. 

Ganglion cells of the cerebel- 
lum, 64. 

Genius, 65. 

German Gymnastics, 258. 

Goddard, 123, 179. 

Goggenmos, 18. 

Goiter, causes of, 159. 

Goiter regions, 158. 

Gordon, 19. 

Griesinger, 21. 

Groszmann, 146. 

Growth, slowness of, 7. 

Guggenbiihl, 4. 18, 19, 20, 21, 
23, 24, 25, 26. 

Gulick, L., 278. 

Guye, 154. 

Gymnastics and fatigue, 258. 

Gymnastic exercises, 251. 

Haeckel, the basic biogenetic 
law, formulated by, 95. 

Hand, training of the, 27-5. 

Hardening procedures, 251. 

Head injury, 189. 

Hebephrenia, 197. 

Hecker, 197. 

Heller, 20, 99, 105, 122, 182, 
286, 336. 339. 

Helmholz, 193. 

Herbart, 276. 

Heredity, 82. 

Heredity, Mendelian law of, 
84-89. 

Herterich's folding store-coun- 
ter for the instruction of 
feeble-minded children, 354. 

Heubner, 324. 

Heuristic Method, 232. 

Hill, William, 155. 

Himmler, Josias, 167. 

Holmes, Edmond, 146, 235, 
304. 

Homo sapiens ferus, 22. 

Hydrocephalus, 192, 324. 

Hypnosis, in the province of 
the physician only, 339. 

Hysteria, 215. 

Idiocy, 16, 17. 178. 
Idiocy, alcoholism as the cause 
of, 187. 



Idiocy, apathetic, 201. 
Idiocy, apperception in, 179. 
Idiocy, attention in, 199. 
Idiocy, brain changes in, 190. 
Idiocy, classification of, 178. 
Idiocy, cruelty in the treatment 

of, 17, 18. 
Idiocy, erithitic, 201. 
Idiocy, one-sided talents in, 

203. 
Idiocy, sense deception in. 201. 
Idiocy, speech deficiency in, 

205. 
Idiocy, syphilis as a cause of, 

188 
Idiots! 10, 184. 
Idiots, bad habits of, 334. 
Idiots, care of incurable, 363. 
Imagination, 105. 
Imbeciles, 184. 
Impressions, sensory, 42, 46, 

56. 
Impulses, natural, 235. 
Individuality, see child. 
Individuality in nature, 147. 
Individualization, principle of, 

4. 7, 8, 23. 
Indolence, 8. 
Inner seeing. 112. 
Instincts, 235. 
Institutions for the unedu- 

cable, 366. 
Instruction, group, 348. 
Instruction, individual, 348. 
Instruction, manual, 276. 
Instruction, sexual, 139. 
Intellectual development of the 

child, 95, 275. 
Iphofen on cretinic degenera- 
tion, 158. 
Iris, contraction of, 37. 
Itard, 22, 229. 

Kafemann, 155. 
Keller, Helen, 60. 
Kindergarten occupations, 276. 
Koch, Wilhelm, 291, 341. 
Kocher, 162. 
Kraepelin, 22. 

Lange on convulsions, 195. 
Lannelongue, 323. 
Laquer, 155. 



382 



INDEX 



Lcnau, 5. 
Liebig, 5. 
Life pursuit, the choice of a. 

315. 
Literature, juvenile, 308. 
Literature, sensational. 111. 
Locomotion, acquirement of, 

97. 
Lumbar, puncture, 324. 
Luther, 17. 

Maintenance, rule of, 85. 
Malnutrition, consequences of, 

246. 
Malthusian theory, 295. 
Manual training, 276, .360. 
Marriage, see degenerates, 222. 
Masochism, 337. 
Medicine and pedagogics, re- 
lations of, 30. 
Medico-pedagogics, 8-9. 
Medulla oblongata, 35. 
Memory, 102. 
Memory-pictures, 72. 
Mendel, Johann Gregor, 83. 
Mendel and Darwin, 87. 
Mendelian law, 134. 
Mendelian law and eugenics, 

87. 
Mental activities, 34. 
Mental activities, development 

of, 74, 75, 76. 
Mental activities in sleep, 68. 
Meyer, William, 4. 
Microcephalus, 192, 193. 
Microcephaly, treatment of. 

321. 
Mind, defects of, 10. 
Mitchell, Arthur, 168. 
Mongoloism, 168. 
Montessori Method, 10-25, 211, 

229. 
Moral insanity, 209. 
Moral sense, the, in children, 

307. 
Moron, 179, 184. 
Motor centers, 36. 
Mouth breathing, 155. 
Moving-pictures, 112. 
Music, 273. 
Musical sense, development of, 

273. 
Muscular actions, 33. 



Myxoedema, 163-165. 
Myxoedema, psychic symptoms 
of, 166. 

Navratzin. 156. 
Nerve cells, 35, 38, 39. 
Nerve conduction, speed of, 61. 
Nerve fibers, 38, 39, 41, 42, 44. 
Nerve reactions, specific, 50, 

51. 
Nerve, sympathetic, 47. 
Nerves, peripheral, 41, 45, 
Nervous children, 211. 
Nervous system, 33, 34. 
Neurasthenia, 211. 
Neurites, 39. 
New-born, care of, 227. 
New-born, psychic process in, 

112. 
Newspaper-reading. possible 

pernicious influence on chil- 
dren, 309. 
Newton, 5. 
Nietzsche, 5. 
"Normal Type," 15. 
Nose, obstruction of, 8, 153, 

155. 
Nose, treatment of obstruction 

in, 320. 
Nutrition, the, of the child, 

245. 

Obedience, mechanical, 237, 

305. 
Obscene literature, 139. 
Obsessions, 214. 
Ontogenesis, 95. 
Open air life, 249. 
Organic defects, 152. 
Overburdening, 131, 132, 290. 
Oxygen in sleep, 69. 

Parents, alcoholism of, 224. 

Parents, constitutional diseases 
of, 135. 

Parents, training of, 221. 

Pedagogics and medicine, re- 
lations of, 30. 

Perception, 40, 113. 

Perceptions in early childhood, 
59. 

Perceptions, sensory, 49. 

Perimetry, 56. 



INDEX 



383 



Peripheral Nerves, 41, 45. 

I'laylogenesis, 95. 

Pleasure, instinctive feeling of, 
in children, 107. 

Polydactylism, 86. 

Pregnancy, surveillance of, 220. 

Professional careers, 316. 

Propagation in animals, 139, 
140. 

Propagation in plants, 189, 
140. 

Psychic abnormalities, 152. 

Psychic infection, 150. 

Psychology, pedagogic, 31. 

Psychology, physiological, 11- 
13. 

Psycho-physical parallelism, 
272. 

Psychotherapy, the unwar- 
ranted use of, 339. 

Pubescence, influence of, 197. 

Punishment, see reward, 306. 

Punishment, corporal, not per- 
missible, 336. 

Reflexes, 37, 48, 68. 

Reil, 28. 

Eeil, rhapsodies of. 27. 

Reward and punishment, 306. 

Responsibility, 148. 

Reymond, Dubois, 257. 

Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 337. 

Sachs, B., 191. 

Sadism, 337. 

Salivation, stimulus of, 43. 

Salzburg's first training-schools 

for the feeble-minded, 18. 
Savage of the Aveyron, 21. 
Scholtz on degeneration and 

regeneration, 145. 
School furnishing, 282. 
Schools, auxiliary, 230. 
Schools for the feeble-minded, 

need for, 288. 
Scripture, E. W., 204. 
S^guin, Edouard, 4, 22, 23, 24, 

25, 20, 338. 
Self-confidence, enforcement of, 

260. 
Self-development, 229. 
Sensational literature. 111. 
Sensations of displeasure, 107. 



Sensations of pleasure, 107. 

Sense deceptions, 52. 

Sensory activities, development 

of, 229. 
Sensory impressions, 42, 46, 56. 
Sensory organs, 34. 
Sensory organs, defects of, 60. 
Sexual dissipation, 136. 
Sexual facts, instruction in, 

138. 
Shuttleworth on Mongoloids, 

172. 
Singing, 283. 
Sleep, 67. 

Sleep, causes of, 68. 
Sleep, disordered, 213. 
Sleep, mental activity in, 68. 
Social feelings, 108. 
Soul blindness, 79, 180. 
Soul deafness, 180. 
Speech, articulate, 78. 
Speech, a spur to logical 

thought, 119. 
Speech, center, 36, 78. 
Speech, correct, 285. 
Speech, development of, 91, 

117. 
Speech, forms of expression of, 

120. 
Speech, organs of, 92, 93. 
Speech, sensory center of, 121. 
Spencer, Herbert, 108. 
Spinal cord, 37, 38. 
Sports, 256. 

Stammering, physiological, 118. 
Sterilization, artificial, 185. 
Stimulants, dangers of, 244. 
Strohmeyer, 182, 196, 215. 
Stuttering, 208. 
Swedish movements, 257. 
Symptomatic treatment, 331. 
Syphilis and idiocy, 188. 

Tactile impressions, measure- 
ment of, 128. 

Therapeutic training, 319. 

"The Only child," 296. 

Thought association, 64, 92. 

Thought concentration of, 54, 
56. 

Thyroid extract, 328. 

Thyroid gland, 9, 161. 

Training school for cretins, 18. 



384 INDEX 

Traumatism, 189. Walking, development of, 254. 

Tuberculosis and idiocy, 188. Weygandt, 17, 205, 356. 

Tuberculosis, hereditary trans- will, diseases of the, 218. 

mission of, 135. will, strength of, 305. 

"Wonder-children," 5. 

Variability, law of, 82. •^^j.^j blindness, 79. 

Vasectomy, 185. ^^ ^ deafness, 79. 

Vegetations, see adenoid. __ .^. _„^ 

Virchow, 194. Writing, 286. 

Vocal organs, 92. Wundt, Wilhelm, 29, 112, 183. 

Voisin, 22, 354. Wundt's law, 331. 



'7 



n^' 1 



V 



